Projects
Striking Essential Oil: Novel tools and new insights to study the biological activities of essential oils (EOs) and their components (EOCs) KU Leuven
The increasing level of antimicrobial resistance poses the threat that no suitable antimicrobials will be available for systematic treatment of common diseases. More and more Candida infections are caused by intrinsically and multi-resistant Candida isolates. There is clearly renewed scientific interest in discovering drugs from natural sources, although natural product-based drug discovery is considered intrinsically ...
Computational design of artificial nuclear receptor proteins KU Leuven
In this project, we will use computer-based methods and experimental biology to design a novel nuclear receptor based biosensor, which may serve as an orthogonal signaling system for synthetic biology. This PhD thesis aims at the computational component of the project. This includes development of a computational protein design workflow to design a protein sensor for any given ligand (inducer) that, upon binding, is able to transfer the ...
Towards an Off-the-Shelf Therapy: Tolerogenic Dendritic Cell-derived Extracellular Vesicles for the Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis. University of Antwerp
The role of HNF4α and hepatocyte de-differentiation in sepsis Ghent University
We hypothesis that sepsis lethality is mainly caused by a reduction in ketogenesis and accumulation of lipids in circulation and peripheral organs, which may contribute to organ dysfunction and failure. In this project, we will demonstrate that in sepsis, HNF4α fails to perform its tasks, causing hepatocytes to de-differentiate and lose metabolic functions by downregulating the responsible transcriptional regulators.
Oligonucleotides for Medical Applications Ghent University
Modified functional ONs will be synthesized. These include modifications with porphyrins, furan, cholesterol, lipids, m3G-CAP and triphosphates. Green chemistry aspects will be addressed by using chemoenzymatic syntheses, using novel enzymes created by directed protein evolution at ultrahigh throughput in droplets. The functional ONs will be designed to detect genetic disorders with ultra-high sensitivity, to stabilise secondary structures ...
The ecological role & structure-activity relationship of antimicrobial linear azol(in)e-containing peptides in foodborne human pathogens KU Leuven
The ER-quality control protein Rer1p is required for functional cilia - implications for zebrafish development and monosomy 1p36. KU Leuven
The GEne Therapy INnovation Training Network KU Leuven
Improving Channels Proteins for Microbial Cell Factories Ghent University
Transport processes play a key role in industrial biotechnology processes, one that is however often neglected. This has resulted in deleterious bottlenecks, lower-than-expected bioconversion efficiencies, and potential cytotoxicity. Aquaglyceroporins (AQGPs) are prime candidates to resolve many of these issues, forming simple and substrate specific channels through the membrane that can enhance transport efficiencies for either import or ...