Projects
Tissue-engineering protocols to accelerate angiogenesis in allogenic trachea transplantation. KU Leuven
Reconstruction of defects involving more than half of the length of the trachea is challenging. Techniques to close these lesions include the use of autologous, allogenic and synthetic tissues. The key aspects of treating long-segment tracheal lesions are not yet fully elucidated. Tissue engineering emerged as a promising field of research to create non-immunogenic scaffolds and aims to construct a functional substitutes for damaged tissues ...
Mast cells in airway allergies: a new vision on a long-studied cell KU Leuven
The airway epithelium harbors a huge amount of mast cells which play a crucial role in host defense as they can adapt their function to the microenvironment in which the reside. Mast cells react to external and internal stimuli thanks to multiple receptors they express and carry out effector and regulatory tasks by different mediators they release. The most studied function of mast cells is associated with allergy through the binding of ...
The rural community in sub-Saharan Africa as a reservoir of antibiotic resistance: a case study from Burkina Faso Institute of Tropical Medicine
Functional, temporal and spatial variability of the intestinal microbiome in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease. KU Leuven
Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are chronic inflammatory disorders (IBD) characterized by relapsing inflammation of the gut. Surgical resection of the affected intestine is required in 30% of UC and 80% of CD patients. Alterations in the gut microbial composition (called dysbiosis) have shown to play a key role in IBD. To what extent the inflammatory infiltrate influences dysbiosis, is unknown. Dysbiosis might be associated ...
Cholinergic modulation of intestinal immune homeostasis: implications for Inflammatory Bowel Disease KU Leuven
The gastrointestinal (GI) tract is continuously exposed to vast amounts of foreign antigens, mainly of dietary and bacterial origin. Although the intestinal mucosa creates a tight barrier against intraluminal proteins and bacteria, it remains highly vulnerable to pathogenic infection. In order to deal with this constant threat, the GI tract is equipped by a potent and efficient defense mechanism provided by the innate immune system, in ...