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Organisation

Laboratory for Epilepsy Research

Lab

Lifecycle:1 Mar 2012 →  Today
Organisation profile:

The Laboratory for Epilepsy Research is affiliated with KU Leuven and has a close collaboration with the Reference Center for Refractory Epilepsy of UZ Leuven. Prof dr Wim Van Paesschen is head of both.

Laboratory of Epilepsy Research is currently partner of the SeizeIT project, which aims to develop a small and discrete smartphone-based device, which is able to detect epileptic seizures in the home-based setting of patients with epilepsy. Partners are Imec, Byteflies, Pili Pili, UCB Pharma and ESAT-Stadius (KU Leuven). SeizeIT is an imec.icon research project with funds of Imec, Innoviris and Agentschap Innoveren&Ondernemen. The project started in October 2016 and will run until September 2018. https://www.imec-int.com/en/what-we-offer/research-portfolio/leaps

The Laboratory of Epilepsy Research collaborates in the project ”Next generation microfluidics technology for human and animal diagnostics” of prof. Jaroslav Belotserkovsky, Department of Mechatronics, Biostatistics and Sensors.  In this project, we plan to develop and validate a Point-Of-Care Testing (POCT) for the fast determination at the bedside of serum concentrations of two frequently used anti-epileptic drugs (phenytoin and valproate). This project is funded by an internal fund of KU Leuven. This project runs from 2017-19.

We have an active interest in multimodal imaging in the presurgical evaluation of patients with refractory focal epilepsy. UZ Leuven is one of the four Belgian reference centers for the presurgical evaluation for epilepsy surgery. In collaboration with colleagues of nuclear medicine (prof dr K. Van Laere and prof dr K. Goffin), neuroradiology (prof dr S. Sunaert and prof dr P. Demaerel), engineers of ESAT-Stadius (prof ir S. Van Huffel) and the Medical Imaging Research Center (MIRC) (prof ir P. Suetens and prof P. Dupont), we have developed several new image processing algorithm, which we validate and implement clinically.

In collaboration with prof dr P. Janssen (Neurophysiology), we have for the first time studied the process of epileptogenesis in the Rhesus amygdala-kindling model of epilepsy using imaging (SISCOM, CB1R-PET, and FDG-PET).

We are involved in the following drug trials:

  • Padsevonil (ucb04942) for the treatment of refractory focal epilepsy (phase IIb trial, UCB Pharma)
  • A double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized-withdrawal, multicenter study of the efficacy and safety of JZP-258 in subjects with narcolepsy with cataplexy (phase III trial, Jazz Pharmaceuticals)

 

Keywords:Epilepsy, Wearable, Multimodal imaging, Anti-epileptic drug trials, Epilepsysurgery
Disciplines:Laboratory medicine, Palliative care and end-of-life care, Regenerative medicine, Other basic sciences, Other health sciences, Nursing, Other paramedical sciences, Other translational sciences, Other medical and health sciences