Title Promoter Affiliations Abstract "Vaccine & Infectious Diseases Excellence in Antwerp: Infectious disease prevention, control and management in a One Health policy context (VAX-IDEA)." "Pierre Van Damme" "Laboratory of Medical Microbiology (LMM), Laboratory for Experimental Hematology (LEH), Centre for Health Economics Research and Modelling of Infectious Diseases (CHERMID), Evolutionary ecology group (EVECO), Centre for the Evaluation of Vaccination (CEV)" "Infectious diseases (ID) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) pose a continuous and serious threat to humans and animals (One Health). Five research units from the UAntwerpen, with strong international records and collaboration, will continue to jointly capitalize on their ID expertise. EVECO studies distribution, evolution and ecology of pathogens (plague, arenaviruses, …) and wildlife hosts, offering insights for emerging ID management. LMM has established large consortia (COMBACTE, PREPARE) leading to pan-European infrastructures for ID and antimicrobial consumption research. Next to developing rapid diagnostics, LMM investigates AMR mechanisms and pathogen dynamics in vitro, in humans/livestock, and in animal models to study host-immune response (biomarker discovery) and bacterial pathogenicity. LEH performs cutting-edge research on cell-based immunotherapies, in collaboration with the UZA Center for Cell Therapy & Regenerative Medicine. LEH investigates host-immune responses in vaccine trials using multi-parametric flow cytometry and systems biology to discover novel immune correlates of protection in next-generation vaccines. CEV studies the epidemiology of vaccine-preventable diseases and performs state-of-the-art vaccine trials with large national/international networks, including maternal immunization trials and quarantine studies with genetically-modified polioviruses. Given the global need for EID vaccines (Lassa, Ebola, …) , CEV engages in several innovative (non)-human challenge-phase 1-2 studies. CHERMID undertakes methodological and applied research on the intersection between health economics, biomedicine and mathematics. CHERMID is internationally renowned for developing models of dynamic ID processes within and between hosts and integrating these with cutting edge economic models. By integrating these complementary expertises, this COE will address current and future challenges in ID management." "Translational and Transdisciplinary research in Modeling Infectious Diseases (TransMID)." "Niel Hens" "Centre for Health Economics Research and Modelling of Infectious Diseases (CHERMID), Vaccine & Infectious Disease Institute (VAXINFECTIO)" "TransMID focuses on the development of novel methods to estimate key epidemiological parameters from both serological and social contact data, with the aim to significantly expand the range of public health questions that can be adequately addressed using such data. Using new statistical and mathematical theory and newly collected as well as readily available serological and social contact data (mainly from Europe), fundamental mathematical and epidemiological challenges as outlined in the following work packages will be addressed: (a) frequency and density dependent mass action relating potential effective contacts to transmission dynamics in (sub)populations of different sizes with an empirical assessment using readily available contact data, (b) behavioural and temporal variations in contact patterns and their impact on the dynamics of infectious diseases, (c) close contact household networks and the assumption of homogeneous mixing within households, (d) estimating parameters from multivariate and serial cross-sectional serological data taking temporal effects and heterogeneity in acquisition into account in combination with the use of social contact data, and (e) finally the design of sero- and social contact surveys with specific focus on serial cross-sectional surveys. TransMID is transdisciplinary in nature with applications on diseases of major public health interest, such as pertussis, cytomegalovirus and measles. Translational methodology is placed at the heart of TransMID resulting in the development of a unifying methodology for other diseases and settings. The development of a toolbox and accompanying software allow easy and effective application of these fundamentally improved techniques on many infectious diseases and in different geographic contexts, which should maximize TransMID's impact on public health in Europe and beyond." "Multidisciplinary research on vaccination and infectious diseases (Vaxinfectio-PO)." "Pierre Van Damme" "Centre for the Evaluation of Vaccination (CEV), Product development, Vaccine & Infectious Disease Institute (VAXINFECTIO)" "Integrated vaccine and microbiological research with a focus on increasing the understanding of the immune response in prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines (including tumour vaccines) and on the containment of antibiotic resistance. Several innovative research topics are ongoing or in the pipeline: potential development of theranostic devices (e.g. rapid Point of Care Diagnostics, optical biosensors, lab-on-chip, microarrays) for pathogen detection and associated resistance in collaboration with several European research partners; potential development of new rapid diagnostic tests and injection devices; potential development of patient-specific cellular vaccines for targeted antiviral and anticancer therapy." "Infectious diseases and environmental health" "Silvia Lenaerts" "Vaccine & Infectious Disease Institute (VAXINFECTIO), Sustainable Energy, Air and Water Technology (DuEL)" "The multidisciplinary valorisation domain manager that coordinates the consortia related to infectious diseases and environmental health is responsible for the overall strategy and cooperation between the different PI's active in this broad research area. It is a senior profile who is strongly connected to industry and policy makers." "Multidisciplinary research on vaccination and infectious diseases." "Pierre Van Damme" "Vaccine & Infectious Disease Institute (VAXINFECTIO)" "Integrated vaccine and microbiological research with a focus on increasing the understanding of the immune response in prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines (including tumour vaccines) and on the containment of antibiotic resistance. Several innovative research topics are ongoing or in the pipeline: potential development of theranostic devices (e.g. rapid Point of Care Diagnostics, optical biosensors, lab-on-chip, microarrays) for pathogen detection and associated resistance in collaboration with several European research partners; potential development of new rapid diagnostic tests and injection devices; potential development of patient-specific cellular vaccines for targeted antiviral and anticancer therapy." "ASCID: Antwerp Study Centre for Infectious Diseases." "Laboratory for Experimental Hematology (LEH), Evolutionary ecology group (EVECO), Vaccine & Infectious Disease Institute (VAXINFECTIO)" "This project represents a research contract awarded by the University of Antwerp. The supervisor provides the Antwerp University research mentioned in the title of the project under the conditions stipulated by the university." "Optimized detection of infectious diseases of the oral cavity by NA based assays using an improved, safe and user-friendly mouthwash.d.m" "Pierre Van Damme" "Vaccine & Infectious Disease Institute (VAXINFECTIO)" "Sampling of the oral cavity for the detection of infectious agents is possible via a mouth wash instead of a cyto-bruch or a wiper. During this project an in-house developed mouth wash will be tested." "Novel molecular intervention technology for infectious and allergic respiratory diseases" "Stefaan De Smedt" "Department of Pharmaceutics" "This collaborative interfaculty project aims at the development of noveltherapeutic approaches for the treatment of infectious and allergicrespiratory diseases and the elucidation of the underlying mechanisms. Animalmodels of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Influenza infection along with modelsfor mild to severe asthma will be combined with modified vaccinogens, immuneinterference and in situ siRNA delivery." "Novel molecular intervention technology for infectious and allergic respiratory diseases" "Nico Callewaert" "Department of Biochemistry and microbiology" "This collaborative interfaculty project aims at the development of noveltherapeutic approaches for the treatment of infectious and allergicrespiratory diseases and the elucidation of the underlying mechanisms. Animalmodels of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Influenza infection along with modelsfor mild to severe asthma will be combined with modified vaccinogens, immuneinterference and in situ siRNA delivery." "Hybrid CAR – improving cellular therapies for infectious diseases" "Linos Vandekerckhove" "Department of Diagnostic Sciences, Department of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics" "In this project we aim to develop a Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cell-based therapy against a viral infection, where virus becomes effectively eliminated from the patient’s organism. CAR T cell therapy has been successfully applied to treatment of haematological malignancies, but its usage to treat viral infections so far has failed clinical trials. The novelty of our approach consists in targeting not only infected host’s cells expressing viral proteins on their surface, but also the pool of free virus that would otherwise fuel the subsequent cycles of infection. Additionally, neutralizing free virus particles should serve to boost host’s response towards the pathogen. We have already received priority date from European Patent Office for this idea and with this application we currently are focusing on supporting our patent claims with experimental data. While we use HIV viral infection as an example, the Hybrid cells can be used also for other infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and multi resistant bacterial infections."