Projects

Flanders, known as Pharma Valley, ranks first globally in the number of drugs in clinical developmen t per capita. Especially biotechnological drug development is gaining a lot of importance herein . Consequentially, t he demand for advanced analytical workflows to characterize the production of biological drugs and assess pharmacokinetics has significantly increased. Current analytical methods involve costly instrumentation and expertise, ...

This study will focus on the development of robust and simple capillary electrophoresis (CE) methods for the analysis of biopharmaceuticals. More and more of these large molecule drugs are becoming available for the treatment of various diseases, and lately also biosimilars which are the non-innovator versions. In low-income countries, these cheaper biosimilars should in the long term guarantee better ...

For various reasons, microscopic particles (1-100 µm) can form in protein, nucleic-acid or cell-based medicines. Such particles (such as aggregated proteins) can be very dangerous and, among other things, provoke very severe immunological side reactions in patients. Therefore, the design and development of biopharmaceuticals require careful analysis/understanding of the origin of these particles. Flow imaging microscopy (FIM) is an essential ...

This project aims to contribute to the development of validated testing protocols for biopharmaceuticals, which will in the long term allow better access to good quality biosimilars in Ethiopia and more broadly in Africa and the South. If such in-house testing capacity is available, the arrival of substandard biosimilars to the market can be prevented

Biopharmaceuticals are a class of emerging drugs that are obtained from or through living organisms. Biopharmaceuticals are large molecules with a complex composition, containing sugars, proteins, and/or nucleic acids. To ensure the stability, efficacy and safety of biopharmaceuticals, their composition needs to be accurately known. For this purpose, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) can be used. HPLC typically separates analytes ...

Yearly, about 150000 people develop peritoneal carcinomatosis (PC) in Europe alone. PC is characterized by the spread of numerous small tumor nodules in the peritoneal cavity. After initial surgery, where as many tumor nodules are removed as possible, the patients receive the intraperitoneal injection of chemotherapeutics such as cisplatin. The prognosis of this patients is however poor, with a median survival of 8 to 12 months. Currently, ...

The composition of the intestinal microbiome and the integrity of the intestinal mucosal barrier is crucial for the proper functioning of the human physiology. As a result, this field of research provides various targets in order to intervene pharmacologically into it, both in the body's own cells concerned and as regards the bacterial species present. The intervention with high specificity on molecular targets has been achieved up to now ...

Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are chronic inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). Approximately 2.2 million patients suffer from these incurable disabling diseases in Europe. State-of-the-art anti-tumour necrosis factor (TNF) alpha treatment (e.g. infliximab, adalimumab) is increasingly used throughout the disease course to induce and maintain clinical remission in IBD patients. Notwithstanding these drugs are very efficacious; nearly 40% ...