Projects
Molecular evolution and cophylogeny of rhabdocoel flatworms as a case study on the acquisition of endosymbiosis Hasselt University
Phylogeny of the rhabdocoel turbellaria and the origin of the freshwater representatives Hasselt University
Lassa virus: unravelling the within-host evolutionary dynamics of acute and persistent infections and the virulence evolution among hosts KU Leuven
Lassa fever is an acute viral haemorrhagic illness caused by Lassa virus (LASV) and one of the priority diseases listed by the World Health Organization. The high incidence in Nigeria with an annual rise of 200-300 cases since 2017 and a case fatality rate of 20% highlight the urgent need to intensify LASV research. To this end, two major longitudinal studies in acute and surviving Lassa fever individuals were initiated in Nigeria in 2018 ...
Structured coalescent models for accurate Bayesian phylodynamic inference KU Leuven
Infectious disease events, especially those resulting from novel emerging pathogens, have significantly increased over the past few decades, possibly as a result of alterations in various environmental, biological, socioeconomic, and political factors (Chan et al., 2010). These factors - which include the increased global population, aging, expansion in international travel and trade, urbanization, and climate change - favour the emergence, ...
New morphological framework and phylogenetic analysis of long-snouted crocodylians: solving the missing pieces of the gharial puzzle KU Leuven
Among living crocodylians are species with long, narrow snouts: the Indian gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) and the Malayan or "false" gharial (Tomistoma schlegelii). The phylogenetic relationships between these two species have been heavily debated due to discrepancies between molecular and morphological data. While recent studies are increasingly finding a consensus for the extant species, the problem now involves mostly the relationships of ...
Calibrating the recent evolution of protozoan pathogens using viral evolutionary time-scales KU Leuven
Exploring natural genetic variation has been instrumental to understand the processes that shape organismal diversity on Earth. Phylogenetics, the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among (groups of) individuals, is one of the most influential techniques to reconstruct the tree of life. This technique is especially powerful when external information, such as fossil data, can be included to time evolutionary events. ...
Evolution and transmission dynamics of gut microbiota species. KU Leuven
The intestinal microbiota is composed of multiple species of microorganisms that have important metabolic, immunological and protective functions for the host. Traditionally, the gut microbiota has been studied through the sequencing of DNA (metagenomics), which has permitted identifying what species are present in the community and what functions they encode. However, little is known about the individual species and strains that make up ...
Titel: Disentangling the taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity in the brown alga Dictyota in relation to patterns of geographic population genetic structuring and hybridization Ghent University
The project aims to characterize the diversity of the brown algal genus Dictyota in European seas, using molecular phylogenetic techniques and microsatellites.
An ultramicrotome to visualise the invisible: from subcellular signalling to the evolution of nematodespermatogenesis Ghent University
Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has an irreplaceable role in the imaging of biological samples and is gaining greater importance in actually visualising and verifying processes that are hypothesised based on emerging molecular studies. Hence, the requested ultramicrotomeU+2014to prepare high-quality and uniform serial selectionsU+2014is an indispensable and durable complement to several lines of vastly evolving, innovative research. ...