Projects
The indirect somato-visual pathway and its role in cross-modal plasticity after visual deprivation in the mouse KU Leuven
One of the best-studies examples of experience- and age- dependent modifications of neuronal circuits in the brain is ocular dominance plasticity. Although it is responsible for the reactivation of the binocular visual cortex after the loss of one eye, it does not explain the recovery of the simultaneously deprived monocular zone. In our mouse model we were able to prove that reactivation of the monocular zone is caused by cross-modal ...
Derivation of bovine embryonic stem cells Ghent University
An innovative approach will be followed to derive bovine embryonic stem cells (ESC). First, we will create different embryos for ESC derivation: (1) ‘giant’ blastocysts to evaluate the influence of cell mass, (2) in vivo embryos, since their cells display more pluripotency characteristics and (3) diapaused embryos which are probably better ESC donors. Besides, extrinsic factors like culture conditions will be evaluated.
Manipulating cell fate during embryonic development and stem cell derivation Ghent University
The first differentiation of the embryo occurs at the blastocyst stage with the formation of the trophectoderm and inner cell mass. Subsequently, the inner cell mass forms the hypoblast and epiblast. By the use of small molecules, these segregations can be influenced. Question remains how this affects embryonic stem cell derivation.
Development of a generic methodology for the derivation of transferable force fields for metal organic frameworks Ghent University
Metal-organic frameworks are fascinating high-performance materials with a lot of promising industrial applications. From theoretical perspectives very little has been done already and MOFs form an unexplored terrain for molecular modeling. The aim of this research is to develop a generic methodology to derive accurate force fields from first principles and to compare the results with experimental data.