Projects
Nano-chemical treatment of wood for enhanced fungal and fire resistance Ghent University
Wood is regarded as an eminent material for future green building. It allows to underpin several of the United Nations sustainable development goals and is regarded critical for the Green Deal objectives of the EU. Nevertheless, to enhance the potential it needs to be better understood in respect of fit-for-purpose based solutions to control both resistance against fire and fungal decay. In this project, we will apply new nano-chemicals and ...
Unraveling Biofilm formation and Removal Dynamics: a Computational Approach KU Leuven
A biofilm is a mode of bacterial life by which microorganisms can survive in stressful environments. It is composed of a microbial community that is enclosed in a protective matrix of self-produced polymeric substances attached to a solid surface. This structural matrix provides its inhabitants with exceptional resistance to antimicrobial agents, hence, making biofilms at the root of several industrial and health problems.
In this ...
Thymic reprogramming: The role of Death Receptor 3 (DR3) Ghent University
Thymic atrophy occurs during viral and bacterial infection, sepsis and endotoxemia, and intestinal damage, which represent a vast number of pathological conditions Using in vitro intact organoid culture of neonatal thymuses, we found that certain combinations of IL12, IL18 and TL1A (the ligand for DR3), results in reduced number of cells in the thymus and the massive egression of myeloid-like cells and NK cells The possible development and ...
Transcriptional and Functional Characterization of Enterochromaffin cells in Irritable Bowel Syndrome KU Leuven
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a gastrointestinal disorder characterized by altered bowel habits and severe abdominal pain, which is caused by sensory nerve fibre sensitization via soluble mediators released from neighbouring cells. Intriguingly, IBS patients develop symptoms upon food ingestion, even though sensory nerve endings do not reach the intestinal lumen. Therefore, the colorectal mucosa must host cells able to transduce chemical ...
Innovative approach for next-generation antibiotics Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Killing by contact: stress response elicited by a lectin-like bacteriotoxin KU Leuven
Plant roots represent nutrient-rich but highly competitive microbial environments. Bacteria colonizing such niches need to fight for ecological space and produce a multitude of antagonistic compounds that kill or inhibit growth of competitors. The latter are often strains related to the producer relying for growth on a highly similar set of nutrients. The past decade revealed several different classes of molecules mediating such ...
Fundamental understandings and development of a novel plasma biofunctionalized 3D-printed/electrospun scaffold for synergetic vascularization and regeneration of spinal cord hemisection Ghent University
More than half a century has passed since the first attempts to repair the devastating spinal cord injuries (SCI). To date, no satisfying clinical outcome is achieved given the defect complexity hampering regeneration. Current tissue engineering strategies promoting nerve growth only show weak neurological recovery. This project launches therefore a novel combinatorial approach through the design of a scaffold synergistically targeting ...
Microbe-mucin isoform crosstalks mediating mucosal barrier function in the gastrointestinal tract versus vagina. University of Antwerp
Development and application of broadly applicable microscopy methods and probes for diffraction-unlimited fluctuation imaging of dynamic biological systems. KU Leuven
Fluorescence imaging has seen a tremendous evolution over the last decade with the advent of methods circumventing the optical diffraction barrier, which has classically limited the fineness with which samples can be resolved to about 200 nanometers. To date, however, imaging at high spatial resolution has become reality but it comes with a cost: superresolution imaging is performed at the expense of a significantly reduced time resolution, ...