Projects
A computational pipeline for highly sensitive profiling of tissue leakage proteins in liquid biopsies Ghent University
A biomarker is a factor found in the body that indicates the presence of disease, ideally at an early stage. The detection of biomarkers in liquid biopsies such as blood is becoming increasingly important in a clinical context. Often, disease-specific proteins in liquid biopsies are tissue leakage proteins (TLPs), derived from tissues directly affected by the disease and thus early signs of this disease. However, such TLPs tend to occur at ...
Advancing Liquid Biopsies for Monitoring and Personalized Treatment of Children with Neuroblastoma Ghent University
The embryonal tumor, neuroblastoma, accounts for 11% of all cancer-related deaths in children. Its heterogeneous tumor biology creates clinical variability spanning spontaneous regression to rapid metastasizing progression. Long-term survival of high-risk disease remains poor, with <40% overall survival after first-line treatment and <10% after relapse, despite considerable international efforts to improve treatment over the last ...
The biology of tumor-derived extracellular RNA in liquid biopsies Ghent University
The discovery that cancer cells actively and passively release their content into the blood stream has opened enormous opportunities for characterizing cancer cells without the need for surgery to access tumor tissue. Instead, a simple drop of blood is sufficient to detect and characterize cancer cells inside a patient’s body. The use of circulating DNA molecules has spurred this field, but the study of circulating RNA molecules also seems ...
Exploring the use of extracellular RNA in liquid biopsies for precision oncology purposes Ghent University
The discovery that cancer cells actively and passively release their content into the blood stream has opened enormous opportunities for characterizing cancer cells without the need for surgery to access tumor tissue Instead, a simple drop of blood is sufficient to detect and characterize cancer cells inside a patient’ body The use of circulating DNA molecules has spurred this field, but the study of circulating RNA molecules also seems ...
Tackling delayed diagnosis and therapy resistance in malignant pleural mesothelioma using patient-derived organoids and liquid biopsies. University of Antwerp
Better control and treatment of immune-mediated diseases by exploring the universe of microenvironment imposed tissue signatures and their correlates in liquid biopsies KU Leuven
Immune-mediated diseases (IMIDs) are an increasing medical burden in industrialized countries worldwide. IMIDs are characterized by an enormous heterogeneity with regard to disease outcome and response to targeted therapies, which currently cannot be adequately anticipated to tailor individual patient management. Hence, mechanistic understanding of this heterogeneity and biomarkers predictive for disease control and therapy response over time ...
Screening and early detection of colorectal cancer and breast cancer in liquid biopsies using a newly-developed multi-regional methylation assay. University of Antwerp
Tumor characterization and disease follow-up in multiple myeloma by (epi) genetic profiling using liquid biopsies Vrije Universiteit Brussel
treatment modalities of multiple myeloma (MM). However, MM is still
an incurable disease and patients become refractory to treatment at
some point in the disease evolution. MM is characterized by a patchy
tumor infiltration pattern in the bone marrow, implicating that analysis
of single bone marrow samples can lead to an underestimation of the ...