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Winner 'Research Rally' Information stands

Announcement by representative Information Stands

Best 1' Poster pitch presentation

Announcement by drs. Sofie Salden, representative of the Organising committee

PhD Thesis Prize AY 2023-2024 of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences

Announcement of the laureates by prof. Piet Hoebeke, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences

Laureate Basic sciences: dr. Arne Peirsman - Exploring Spheroids in the light of Adipose Tissue Engineering

Supervisors: prof. Phillip Blondeel & prof. Olivier De Wever

Soft tissue defects are a common challenge in plastic and reconstructive surgery. Current treatments include synthetic materials (fillers, implants) and natural tissues (grafts, flaps), each with pros and cons. The ideal solution involves restoring defects with autologous, vascularized, functional adipose tissue, harvested minimally invasively with predictable results. Tissue engineering (TE) offers innovative approaches such as cell-seeding scaffolds, decellularized matrices, hydrogels, 3D printing, and 3D cell clusters.

Among these, 3D cell clusters like spheroids and organoids show promise due to their in vivo-like behavior, scalability, robustness, and proangiogenic properties. However, spheroid research lacks standardization, with over 80% of formation protocols being unique and critical details often missing, hindering reproducibility and comparability. Our research revealed the significant impact of culture medium on spheroid characteristics, including cell viability, ATP content, cytokine production, radiotherapy response, and morphology.

To address this, we published our findings and proposed spheroid reporting guidelines alongside leading researchers. Additionally, we created an atlas of over 8000 microscopy images of spheroids formed from 47 cell lines, using various methods, media, and densities. This database aids researchers in optimizing their experiments and supports the development of AI tools for image analysis.

We aim to enhance transparency and reproducibility in spheroid research, providing a solid foundation for adipose tissue engineering. Promoting reporting standards and data sharing can also drive progress across other TE approaches.

Laureate Basic sciences: dr. Victor Bosteels - A Novel Role for the IRE1/XBP1 Branch in Dendritic Cells: A Signaling Cascade Matures

Supervisors: prof. Sophie Janssens and prof. Bart Lambrecht

Dendritic cells (DCs) are a type of immune cell responsible for recognizing invaders. When they encounter an invader, they take it up and undergo maturation. This means that DCs will activate other immune cells (T cells) that can specifically combat the invader to generate immunity. Even in the absence of pathogens, DCs undergo maturation, but in this case, they inactivate T cells that recognize the body's own or harmless substances. This process is essential to prevent autoimmunity and allergy. However, the signals that induce this tolerogenic maturation are still not fully understood.

Our research showed that the uptake of dead cells, which are formed under physiological conditions, induces tolerogenic maturation in DCs. The cholesterol from these dead cells activates IRE1 and LXR, which are important regulators of tolerogenic DC maturation. We also discovered that we can mimic tolerogenic maturation of DCs using lipid nanoparticles. This could form the basis for developing tolerogenic vaccines that teach the immune system not to react against allergens or the body's own substances.

Laureate Clinical/Translational sciences: dr. Levi Hoste - Exploring the Immune Horizon: Systemic Inflammatory Diseases in the Era of SARS-CoV-2 and Beyond 

Supervisors: prof. Filomeen Haerynck, prof. Joke Dehoorne and dr. Simon Tavernier

Fever is one of the most common symptoms in humans and a key sign of inflammation. It can occur in many diseases and is caused by the immune system’s response to infections, autoimmune conditions, and other inflammatory disorders. However, not all cases of fever are easily diagnosed, and some patients develop severe or long-lasting inflammation due to genetic or unknown factors. These conditions can be difficult to treat and may lead to serious health problems if not properly managed.

This research aimed to improve the understanding of inflammatory diseases by studying the immune responses of patients with fever and systemic inflammation. A special focus was given to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, which created an opportunity to study a rare but serious inflammatory condition in children called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C). This condition appeared weeks after a SARS-CoV-2 infection and affected multiple organs, including the heart and digestive system. By analyzing blood samples from affected children, specific immune markers were identified, helping to better understand, diagnose and treat this severe disease. Next, it was assessed whether COVID-19 vaccines could trigger a relapse. Thankfully, no severe inflammatory reactions were reported after vaccination in children who had previously had MIS-C.

Beyond MIS-C, other inflammatory diseases were investigated by analyzing blood samples from patients with different immune disorders. Using advanced data analysis, five key immune markers were identified that could help distinguish between different types of inflammatory diseases. This discovery could lead to improved diagnostic tests and more personalized treatments for patients with fever-related illnesses.

Overall, this research highlighted the importance of studying the immune system to better diagnose and treat inflammatory diseases. It also shows how unexpected events, like the COVID-19 pandemic, can provide valuable insights into rare conditions. Future studies will continue to refine these findings, with the goal of improving patient care and treatment strategies for people affected by unexplained acute or chronic inflammation.

Laureate Clinical/Translational sciences: dr. Laurens Lambrechts - Development of a novel assay to characterize the HIV-1 reservoir using long-read sequencing

Supervisors:  prof. Linos Vandekerckhove & prof. ir. Wim Van Criekinge

Despite the success of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in suppressing HIV-1, the virus remains incurable. ART cannot eliminate the small but persistent reservoir of infected CD4 T cells, allowing the virus to return quickly after stopping treatment. This reservoir is the main obstacle to finding a cure, and understanding how it works is crucial to overcoming it.

In this PhD research, the HIV-STAR clinical trial provided a unique opportunity to study how HIV rebounds after ART is interrupted. By analyzing blood samples from participants, we discovered that viral rebound comes from a variety of sources in the body, including intact - and thus still infectious - viruses in infected T cell clones. These findings highlight why traditional methods, which often rely on analyzing only small parts of the viral genome, can give an incomplete or even misleading picture.

To address this, I developed the HIV-PULSE assay—a cutting-edge tool that uses advanced long-read sequencing technology to analyze near full-length HIV-1 genomes. This method is faster, more affordable, and more precise than traditional approaches. For the first time, we were able to study thousands of viral genomes from 18 different individuals, offering unprecedented detail about the genomic composition of the HIV reservoir.

This breakthrough doesn’t just deepen our understanding of how HIV hides and persists—it also opens new doors for drug resistance screening, designing better treatments and testing potential cures. With HIV-PULSE, researchers now have a powerful tool to analyze the reservoir on a scale and depth that was previously impossible, bringing us closer to a world without HIV.

Laureate Health sciences: dr. Thibaux Van der Stede - A multicellular perspective on exercise-induced plasticity in human skeletal muscle

Supervisors: prof. Wim Derave, prof. Lasse Gliemann and prof. Ylva Hellsten

Skeletal muscle is essential in the overall regulation of our health related to metabolic, cardiovascular and neurological diseases. Regular physical exercise is one of the cornerstone strategies to prevent or even treat many of these conditions. In this thesis, we provide novel insights into the molecular mechanisms of muscle homeostasis in health and disease. We first focused on muscle fibers, the main cell population in skeletal muscle. By developing novel workflows for the molecular characterization of these fibers, we provide important insights in their diversity in human skeletal muscle, and in how heterogenous their response is during and following cycling exercise. The cellular diversity extends well beyond these muscle fibers, which we profiled in several follow-up experiments. We uncovered a small mast cell population that is key in driving exercise responses by secretion of histamine into the human muscle microenvironment. By pharmaceutically inhibiting the function of histamine via over-the-counter available antihistamine medication, we observed that the beneficial exercise effects on metabolic health, cardiovascular health and aerobic capacity were partially or completely blunted. Collectively, we provide new state-of-the-art methodologies in the field of muscle physiology and add new layers of complexity to our view of exercise responses in relation to cellular diversity with high clinical relevance.

PhD Thesis Prize AY 2023-2024 of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine

Announcement of the laureates by prof. Ann Martens, Dean of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine

Laureate non-clinical PhD: Tine De Coster - How to select the embryo for transfer: novel insights from advanced genetic analysis of bovine and equine embryos. 

Supervisors: prof. Katrien Smits, prof. Ann Van Soom & prof. Joris Vermeesch

My doctoral research investigated the complex biology of early embryonic development in cattle, horses, and humans, with a focus on genetic abnormalities and their impact on embryo and pregnancy loss, particularly in the context of assisted reproductive technologies (ART). While ART increases the number of embryos, its success rate remains limited due to genetic errors such as mutations, chromosomal abnormalities, and genome-wide errors.

While the origin and significant impact of chromosomal errors (e.g. trisomy 21 which can lead to Down syndrome) are relatively well described, much less is known about genome-wide errors, which are not well detected, or not detected at all, by most genetic analysis techniques, especially in embryos. Using live imaging and advanced genetic techniques in a bovine embryo model, we provided direct evidence for ‘heterogoneic cell division’ as an explanation for the origin of genome-wide errors. This phenomenon involves an ‘abnormal’ first cell division of the embryo into more than two cells, where parental genomes segregate into different embryonic cells through various mechanisms, leading to ‘genetic mosaicism.’ This genetic mosaicism, in turn, increases the likelihood of early embryonic arrest but can also persist until the blastocyst stage in both cattle and humans. As a result, heterogoneic cell division may explain the occurrence of genome-wide abnormal abortion products, clinical pregnancy developments (e.g., tumoral placental degeneration, also known as a ‘molar pregnancy’), or clinically abnormal individuals with a genome-wide mosaic cell pattern. On the other hand, the exclusion of genome-wide abnormal cells from the embryo and the predominant presence of cells with a normal genome during development to the blastocyst stage, suggest that heterogoneic cell division may also serve as a mechanism to correct early embryonic errors that lead to genome-wide abnormalities. In addition to the first division into three cells, other morphokinetic events in bovine embryos also resulted in early embryonic mortality, such as the absence of a temporary pause during the cleavage stage, a slow first division, a first division producing uneven cells, or premature oscillations of the oolemma.

We also developed preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) for horses further, including a sensitive qPCR test for sex determination and an “all-in-one” PGT method that simultaneously detects chromosomal errors, genome-wide errors, diseases, and traits. No effects on initial pregnancy outcomes or early pregnancy losses were observed when a number of cells were extracted from the embryo using a sharp needle. Using our “all-in-one” PGT test, we demonstrated that chromosomal and genome-wide errors, similar to those found in humans and cattle, also occur in horse embryos and contribute to early embryonic mortality.

This research contributed to a better understanding of embryo genetics and morphokinetics and provides valuable insights and new techniques for optimizing ART in both livestock breeding and human medicine. These findings can be implemented in the selection of high-quality embryos through static or dynamic morphological assessment or PGT, potentially increasing the success rates of ART. Additionally, they shed new light on the fundamental mechanisms of early embryonic development.

Laureate clinical PhD: Thomas Lowie - Development of decision support tools to rationalize antimicrobial use in bovine respiratory disease. 

Supervisors: prof. Bart Pardon  & dr. Giles Hanley-Cook

The health and well-being of calves play a pivotal role in ensuring the productivity and sustainability of the cattle industry. One of the biggest threats to calves is bovine respiratory disease (BRD). In the quest to control BRD and its adverse effects, antimicrobial group treatments are frequently used. With the emergence of antimicrobial resistance in human and veterinary medicine, food-animal industries have been requested to reduce and rationalize antimicrobial use. Despite large investments in diagnostics, treatment, and prevention, BRD continues to be a leading cause of economic losses, antimicrobial use, and hampered animal welfare. At present, veterinarians and farmers still use the BRD concept to select animals eligible for treatment. BRD covers a broad range of animals with respiratory signs, ranging from a simple cold to a life-threatening pneumonia. The lack of scientifically supported case-definitions currently results in the, unintended, overuse and misuse of antimicrobials. Knowing which calf to treat is a vexed question for research and the industry. In this doctoral thesis, clinical signs and biomarkers are explored for their utility to support decision making at different steps of the management of BRD. This work aims to help clarify which clinical signs or biomarkers can be used for purposes such as early warning, detection of pneumonia, diagnosis of respiratory pathogens involved, and therapy initiation. In conclusion, the findings from this doctoral thesis support the use of a four step-by-step approach. In the absence of etiological biomarkers and data-driven tools, the step-by-step approach and the on-farm use of (q)TUS is a necessary and accessible step to rationalize antimicrobial use for BRD.

PhD Thesis Prize AY 2023-2024 of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Announcement of the laureate by prof. Jan Van Bocxlaer, Dean of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Laureate: dr. Marthe Vandeputte - The old, the new, the (un)expected: A pharmacological perspective on new synthetic opioids of the post-fentanyl analogue era

Supervisor: prof.  Christophe Stove

New psychoactive substances (NPS) are adding complexity to recreational drug markets worldwide. Of the different classes of NPS, the growing group of new synthetic opioids (NSOs) is of particular concern owing to the high risk of overdose. Prior to 2019, the majority of emerging NSOs were analogues of fentanyl; in recent years, this balance has shifted towards the appearance of non-fentanyl-related NSOs, shaping the so-called “post-fentanyl analogue era”. Insight into the biological effects of emerging NSOs is crucial to inform stakeholders of the potential harm that is linked with the presence of these substances on recreational drug markets. In this context, the present PhD research focused on in vitro and in vivo pharmacological characterization of emerging non-fentanyl NSOs (including cinnamylpiperazines, 2-benzylbenzimidazole ‘nitazene’ opioids, brorphine analogues, and others). At the in vitro level, different assays were applied to evaluate binding to and activation of the µ-opioid receptor. In vivo, the effects of various NSOs in rodents were evaluated by means of behavioural assays (including evaluation of antinociception, locomotor activity, and body temperature changes). Taken together, this research contributes to evidence-based risk assessments that can be used to direct and prioritize drug policy and harm reduction strategies.