Name Responsible Activity "Lab for Equilibrium Investigations and Aerospace (LEIA)" "Floris Wuyts" "LEIA is a continuation of the group AUREA (Antwerp University Research Center for Equilibrium and Aerospace), which was formerly part of BIMEF. This group was never officially ratified. LEIA was therefore established in October 2018 in a separate entity. The research within LEIA is divided into 2 major parts: on one hand equilibrium research and on the other research on the impact of weightlessness and spaceflight on the human body and in particular on the neurosensory system and the brain. Equilibrium research involves the study of various disorders of the human equilibrium system. Especially Mal de Debarquement Syndrome and Visual Induced Dizziness have been investigated in recent years and are the subject of a study of current projects. But other disorders of the balance system are also studied. Hereto, patients with specific vestibular disorders are examined. Until 2017 these patients were recruited at the NKO service of the UZA, but since 2018 these patients have been recruited at the NKO service of the St Augustinus Hospital in Wilrijk. Space research is situated on one hand on the BRAIN-DTI project and on the other hand the GAZE-SPIN project. Both ESA projects are funded by BELSPO. For BRAIN-DTI, cosmonauts are examined with advanced MRI techniques before and after their space flight of typically 6 months to the International Space Station ISS. An additional scan is also made 7 months after their return. Several remarkable findings have been uncovered, which have e.g. been published in The New England Journal of Medicine (Impact Factor 79.2). This research will continue for at least 4 years. In addition, for the GAZE-SPIN project, 40 cosmonauts have so far been tested in terms of their equilibrium organs by placing them on a special centrifuge in Star City near Moscow before and after their space flight. This research also runs for at least 4 more years." "Department of Geology" "Marc De Batist" "The Department Geology and Soil Science is responsible for research in Geology. Our department consists of 6 research units (Soil Science, Hydrogeology and Applied Geology, Marine Geology, Mineralogy and Petrology, Paleontology, Pore-scale Processes in Geomaterials), with a total of approximately 100 co-operators, all in charge for scientific research in 3 major thematic research domains: 'Global Change Geology', 'Geomaterials and Natural Resources' and Earth and Environmental Sciences' ..." "Faculty of Business Economics" "The Faculty of Business Economics believes that the future of university education and research lies in striving for a balance between excellence and unicity, between a multidisciplinary approach and specialisation, and between experimental innovation and a deepening of established topics. These balancing acts are steered by a quality culture with transparent instruments.The Faculty of Business Economics stands for strong university education and research which, building on its vision, occupies a unique position in the business economy of Limburg and Flanders, and is supported by scientific recognition worldwide." "Human Movement Biomechanics Research Group" "Benedicte Vanwanseele" "The central research area of the research group ‘human movement biomechanics’  is to investigate the mechanics of musculoskeletal function during gross motor functions (varying from activities of daily living, vocational activities to sports activities) and how the musculoskeletal function is reorganized and adapts to cope with these functions." "Human Physiology and Sports Physiotherapy Research Group" "Bart Roelands" "The research group MFYS explores the interaction of exercise on neurochemistry and neurophysiology. The research is concentrated at several levels: Fundamental – Physiological research; Applied – Clinical research and Benchmarking – Policy making research. Most of the research projects progress through these 3 levels, starting from fundamental studies (e.g. animal studies) through applied, clinical trials, which could lead to benchmarking studies or to policy making advise. Fundamental – Physiological research: At this fundamental level, animal and human experiments are combined, with measurements of neurotransmitters and the hormonal output from the brain during different manipulations (see relevant refs ‘Exercise & Brain Neurotransmission’). We perform fundamental research on the limits of fatigue, mechanisms of thermoregulation (see relevant refs ‘Exercise Performance and the Brain), the positive effects of exercise on neurogenesis (see relevant refs ‘Exercise & Neurogenesis’), and the effects of exercise and pollution and the brain also included animal studies (see relevant refs ‘Exercise, Pollution & the Brain’). The Applied – Clinical research aims at examining the value of the study findings of the fundamental research at the applied/clinical level. Again, all studies are within the area of exercise and the brain in health & disease. In general, the applied – clinical research is focused on studying exercise and training in different patient populations such as obese, diabetes patients (see relevant refs ‘Exercise, Diabetes & the Brain’), sports injuries and performance (see relevant refs ‘Exercise & Sports). Recently, the effects of exercise and pollution are integrated into the applied – clinical cluster, this way the health enhancing effects of ‘commuter cycling’ are outweighed against air pollution (see relevant refs ‘Exercise, Pollution & the Brain’). Fundamental and applied research is performed in an ongoing collaboration with the R&MM research group of the faculty of engineering. Together we obtained a Strategic Research Program – VUB, in which Exercise, the Brain and the added value of Robotics are studied (see also collaboration). Since several years the research group is involved in ESA sponsored research. The first paper after the ‘Mars 500’ project was published in 2013 (ref 5,6). Several Antarctica missions (ref 7,8), were performed, and prof N. Pattyn is currently the medical research officer of a British mission on the Halley research basis. These experiments are linked with the control experiments from the Antarctica mission (ref 7,8), and the project focusing on sleep & recovery. In order to bring applied research in line with the Exercise & Brain research we created the ‘Lotto Sport Science Chair’. This ‘chair’ was renewed in 2014 and a second PhD project is ongoing. This research project examines several aspects of performance and recovery, focusing on brain mechanisms of fatigue and recovery, including nutritional interventions (e.g. refs 13-21). In 2013 R. Meeusen was the leading author of a joint consensus statement on ‘overtraining’ of the 2 leading world organizations on sports medicine and sport science (European College of Sport Science – ECSS and American College of sports Medicine – ACSM) (ref 45-56) (see relevant refs ‘Exercise, Overreaching, Overtraining’). Most of the applied sports research is in collaboration with the Australian Institute of Sports looking at training & recovery. Sports Injury Prevention, especially neuromuscular aspects of injury prevention, is run together (see relevant refs ‘Exercise & Sports) with the University of Amsterdam and integrates sports injuries with fatigue, recovery and underlying neuromuscular mechanisms. Also in 2014 an extensive experiment was performed on an ‘ecological method’ to induce extreme exercise induced fatigue - overtraining (Tour for Life AMBRURO), an international project with UAmsterdam, Utrecht and Rome.Benchmarking or policy supporting research. The interuniversity spin-off with the University of Ghent ‘Spartanova’ is an on-line application of training and testing in athletes, together with injury prevention and talent detection.The strategy followed by MFYS is based on solid collaboration with several national and international groups. Of special interest is the collaboration with the R&MM research group of the faculty of Engineering (MECH). This collaboration started with the ALTACRO project in which a substantial grant from the VUB goes to the building of a ‘rehabilitation robot’ (e.g. ref. 38, 58-62). This ongoing collaboration resulted in the ‘Strategic Research Program’ at the VUB: ‘Exercise and the Brain in Health & Disease: The Added Value of Human-Centered Robotics’ focuses on at integrating the expertise of the two VUB groups so that the specific multidisciplinary research can be performed. Furthermore, it will allow us to cross the conventional research borders, and develop a unique joint expertise within the consortium. In line with this collaboration the FP7 project Cyberlegs started in February 2012. “Cyberlegs plus plus” the follow up of this EU project will be submitted April 2015. With Horizon 2020 it is clear that our strong research consortium will try to be involved in several European projects (negotiations on grant submission are ongoing). IN 2014 we obtained an Horizon 2020 grant “SCAFFY” (MSCA-RISE project). Historically MFYS has a strong collaboration with several groups : The close collaboration with the laboratory of pharmacology VUB (FASC) within the Centre for Neuroscience for the animal studies has proven to be an important factor in the research. An international collaboration with a Japanese group (University of Hiroshima) was established following a 2 year post-doc fellowship of Hiroshi Hasegawa at the dept. This allows a continuation of this animal research line (see refs 4, 12, 16). Linking brain research with pathologies such as obesitas, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease is established in collaboration with dr Luc Van Loon (University of Maastricht, The Netherlands). Together we supervised a PhD project which now results in research on cognition, neurogenesis in diabetics, and the elderly person (see relevant refs ‘Exercise, Diabetes & the Brain’). The ongoing collaboration with dr Elsa Heyman (University of Lille France) has resulted in a ‘dual PhD’ for Dr Cajsa Tonoli, we obtained a TOURNESOL travel grant. We are looking at cognitive aspects in type 1 diabetics (see ref. 48-52). In 2014-2015 prof Danusa Diaz Soares from the Laboratório de Fisiologia do Exercício - LAFISE Belo Horizonte Brazil is doing her sabattical in MFYS. This has led to the submission of several research project (also together with the university of Maastricht, and Lille). There is an ongoing collaboration with VITO. With this group, we examine the balance between the health enhancing effects of commuting by bicycle and exercising in busy traffic (polluted air). We explore the medical and cognitive effects of cycling in polluted air (see refs 30-36). Also together with VITO and the Universade federal de Sao Paulo, we run a project that explores the effects of air pollution on the health and cognition of active people, athletes and elderly (e.g. ref. 30-36). Exploring brain mechanisms of fatigue not only involves neurotransmission but also supraspinal pathways, this is examined together with the dept. of Applied Biology of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) (Prof Jacques Duchateau). The Royal Military Academy (VIPER) is also a prominent partner, especially through Dr. Nathalie Pattyn, who is an expert in psychophysiological aspects of stress, sleep and cognition. The study on confinement has led to an ESA grant ‘Mars 500’ on long duration isolation and the effect of exercise. This international project is run together with the university of Rome and the Sport university of Köln (see ref 5,6). Data processing from the ESA South Pole experiments is ongoing. This ‘Antarctica project’ integrates the collaboration between several groups such as VITO – Sport University Köln – VIPER – MFYS VUB “ESA - Concordia”." "Management Information Systems (MIS)" "Jan Verelst" "Software Architectures This group has focused on identifying principles, patterns and other methodological elements for building software architectures for enterprise systems. The principles define the rules according to which software architectures have to be built so that there are no combinatorial explosions in the impacts of pre-defined basic changes to the system. Systems that comply with the principles are called normalized systems. The patterns form a constructive proof that normalized systems, containing common basic functionality of enterprise systems, can be actually be built in practice. It is noteworthy that these principles are independent of specific programming or modeling languages, software packages or any kind of hype in the ICT sector. Normalized systems are a specific way of viewing service-oriented architectures (SOA), which are currently prevalent in academic literature. Indeed, the essence of SOA can be described as a new way of building high-level designs. Unfortunately, there are at this moment very few guidelines or laws on how this should be done, which is a major shortcoming. The principles described above can be seen as a contribution to solving this problem, demonstrating the technical-scientific relevance of this research. The objective of this line of research is to achieve 'straight through processing'. This term is used to refer to the tight coupling between a change at the organizational level, which is propagated straight to the architectural and implementation level. This line of research integrates previous research by Herwig Mannaert on software architectures and their implementation with Jan Verelst's research on evolvability of conceptual models and design models of information systems. Several PhD students are active in this line of research. A new, related research topic is the influence of SOA on outsourcing, which is the subject of PhD-level research. Governance and Alignment In the present dynamic knowledge based economy, ICT is playing an increasingly important role in the management of transactions, information and knowledge. In many companies ICT is an integral part of the business and fundamental to the support, durability and development of economic and social activity. Starting from this observation, the managerial research group wants to execute and report on consumable research that is based on scientific models and relevant for practice. The focus areas for the research are models and best practices in the fields of ""business governance of ICT"" and ""business/ICT alignment"". The 'managerial' research area focuses on ICT Governance and its structures, processes and relational mechanisms. Specific attention is paid to the Balanced Scorecard as a performance measurement and management system for ICT. Currently, there are three major research directions: ICT governance practices, the relationship between business and ICT goals, the business value of ICT related business projects, and the further development of an ICT control standard (COBIT). Other topics These topics, all PhD-level research, were determined previously to the development of the vision mentioned above, and were not specifically aligned with it. - Organizational Adoption of Open Source Software - E-sourcing adoption - Ubiquitous computing" "Peripheral Neuropathies Group" "Vincent Timmerman" "State of the art Inherited peripheral neuropathies belong to the most common neuromuscular disorders and occur worldwide (1/2500). The best known is Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT), an inherited disorder first described in 1886. Most patients have a progressive weakness and wasting of foot and hand muscles. Sometimes patients need walking aids or become wheelchair dependent even at a young age. The clinical variability and genetic heterogeneity often poses difficult diagnostic problems. Treatment is currently supportive (braces and foot surgery) and a therapy that fundamentally alters the course of these diseases is still lacking. A better understanding of the molecular architecture of the peripheral nerve, the functional pathways, the myelination process and the complex interaction between the axon, the myelinating Schwann cells and muscle is crucial to identify targets for therapeutic interventions. The identification of loci, genes and disease-causing mutations involved in the inherited peripheral neuropathies is the first step in this understanding and opens new perspectives for molecular genetic diagnosis. Genotype/phenotype correlations guide the selection of specific mutations suitable for functional analysis in cellular and animal models. These models are instrumental in the search for therapies. The knowledge gained from the molecular genetic and biological research of inherited peripheral neuropathies will also help to make progress in the study of acquired peripheral neuropathies. Some of these neuropathies are often therapy-resistant, have a profound influence on the quality of life of the patients, and constitute a financial burden for both the individual and the community. Strategy The peripheral nervous system (PNS) exchanges motor, sensory and autonomic information between the central nervous system (CNS) and the limbs, organs and tissues. A series of biological and environmental conditions, such as genetic mutations, chemical stress, infections or metabolic insults, can lead to axonal loss and demyelination, the pathological hallmarks of peripheral nerve degeneration. Moreover, degeneration of peripheral nerves is accompanied by a local activation of the immune system. The Peripheral Neuropathy Group aims at understanding the delicate balance between peripheral nerve homeostasis and degeneration by using two paradigms: (1) how do genetic mutations lead to peripheral nerve degeneration and (2) what is the role of the innate immune system in nerve protection. Science Over the years, our lab has become one of the main CMT research centers in the world; overall, 1/3 of the 40 IPN disease causing genes were found within our team or via international collaborations. Not surprisingly, many of these genes encode proteins that are involved in myelination and maintenance of the peripheral nerve. However, also ubiquitously expressed genes with basic tasks in every cell were found to specifically cause peripheral nerve degeneration. Since the identification of a disease-associated gene is only a first step in unraveling the disease pathomechanism, we aim to go further and understand the functional consequences of the pathogenic mutations. We chose to focus on genes that our lab identified to be causative for CMT. We aim to unravel the unique properties of these proteins in peripheral nerve biology as well as explore how these properties are affected upon mutation. To this end, we develop cellular and animal model systems. We are not only investigating the impact of disease-causing mutations on the well established functions of these proteins, but additionally try to identify novel pathways in which these proteins might be involved by undertaking large scale approaches. Our 'gene-driven' approach is further complemented by a second research line, which aims to identify the role of the innate immune system in neuroprotection and -degeneration. Understanding how this balance is controlled might allow us to fine-tune or even stimulate an inherent neuroprotective response. We strongly believe that our research strategy can contribute to the development of novel treatment strategies for CMT patients. The interaction between neurologists, molecular geneticists and cell biologists places our lab in a privileged position: it ensures access to patient material, and also allows us to couple back our findings in the lab with clinical data. We also maintain contacts with the International CMT Consortium by co-organising meetings and workshops." "Plant and Ecosystems (PLECO) - Ecology in a time of change" "Ivan Nijs" "The research group of Plant and Vegetation Ecology (PLECO) has an extensive and long-standing experience with the study of a wide range of subdisciplines in the domain of ecology, in particular the ecology of plants and vegetations. The continuum of different spatial scales is being bridged, ranging from the individual plant, over populations and plant communities (vegetations) to entire landscapes and regions. The present research (and teaching) fits primarily in the ecophysiology, eco-physics, canopy micro-meteorology, ecosystem physiology, plant sociology and landscape ecology. As much as possible experimental research is being coupled to exisiting or newly developed simulation models. The following research topics are of primary interest to the group: - Assessment of the carbon cycle at different organizational levels of the individual plant, vegetation and ecosystem. The expertise of the PLECO-group includes a.o. carbon exchange measurements of the vegetation and the soil, as well as the development of suitable systems for the exposure to global climatic changes (open top chambers, closed enclosure units, sunlit growth chambers). - Impact studies of increased CO2 concentrations, enhanced temperature and tropospheric ozone concentrations (global climatic changes) on individual plants, vegetations and ecosystems. - Biodiversity: functional aspects of and changes in biodiversity, manipulation of diversity in synthesized grassland ecosystems for the study of diversity-function relationships and for studies with regard to the impact of biological invasion, modelling, ecosystem resistance and resilience. - Structure of plants and vegetations, and their impact on radiative transfer, and study of structures at the landscape level (quantification of habitat fragmentation); application of landscape indices to tropical deforestation. - Ecological modelling: carbon and nitrogen cycle, radiation interception by plant canopies, biodiversity and productivity, local extinction of species, prediction of production, growth and wood quality of forests and trees, impact of elevated CO2 and/or ozone on plants. - Ecology, energy and carbon balance of mixed, temperate forests. - Ecology and physiology of poplar within the framework of short rotation coppice cultures for bio-energy production (ecophysiology, genomics, clonal variability). In terms of biomes, the group aims to study a wide variety of different biome types (present research activities in tundra, deserts, temperate grasslands, temperate and tropical forests, but also in agricultural crops and plantations)." "Rehabilitation Research Center" "Peter FEYS" "The Rehabilitation Research Center (REVAL) is part of the faculty Rehabilitation Sciences at Hasselt University. Research within the REVAL research group is divided into four subdomains of rehabilitation sciences:  Neurological and geriatric rehabilitation  Rehabilitation of cardiorespiratory and internal diseases  Musculoskeletal rehabilitation  Pediatric rehabilitationWithin all domains, research questions can be situated on the level of applied clinical research, closely related to clinical practice, and on the level of underlying mechanisms (immunological, neurophysiological, anatomical, motor learning, metabolic). Besides, REVAL includes biomechanical and health psychological research supporting the domains listed above.REVAL is an European leading center in MS physical rehabilitation as well as cardiometabolic and COPD rehabilitation. It is involved in the relevant European organizations in these listed domains. REVAL is also recognised for its methodological expertise in non-invasive brain stimulation, this resulted in bilateral cooperation with international experts in this field and is also known for research on imitation in autism. More recently, REVAL is having an increased (inter)national reputation in technology-supported physical rehabilitation, also thanks to the collaboration with EDM and Eindhoven University of Technology." "Allergy and Clinical Immunology Research Group" "Dominique Bullens" "1. Allergy Clinical research, cohort based, on drug hypersensitivity Food allergy: clinical driven research into hidden allergens, co-factor enhanced food allergy, rare allergens (allergy to carmine, eatable insect allergens, WDEIA quality of life study etc…) Mastocytosis and hymenoptera venom allergy and treatment: clinical prospective follow-up over 30 years of a large database of patients with hymentoptera venom allergy – coincidence of mastocytosis – role of c-kit determination in peripheral blood in adults Children: (cutaneous vs systemic) mastocytosis: role of c-kit determination in peripheral blood; longitudinal study Role of innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) in chronic intestinal inflammation and intestinal fibrosis (ongoing): intended to broaden ILC research to allergic diseases (food allergy, eosinophilic oesophagitis)2. Tolerance induction Tolerance induction towards allergens: development of both natural (longitudinal studies) and immunotherapy-induced tolerance: study of the role of regulatory T cells and adaptive immunity in environmental and food allergy3. Upper and lower airway hyper-reactivity Study of the impact on epithelial barrier dysfunction on chronic airway inflammation, including interaction with environment, microbiome and therapeutic targets) Study of neuro-immune mechanisms underlying chronic airway inflammation Lower airway inflammation (in close collaboration with lab of pneumology):- in house murine models of allergic asthma- development of new mouse models for non-allergic asthma- role of innate immunity (and ILCs) vs adaptive immunity in those models Translational research in patients with upper and/or lower airway inflammation: immune cells and cytokines recruited/expressed in upper and lower airway tissue: cross-sectional studies and studies after experimental provocation (allergen, exercise, cold air,...) "