Projects
HIGH-THROUGHPUT, HIGH-SENSITIVITY AND COST-EFFECTIVE MONITORING OF INNATE AND ADAPTIVE IMMUNE RESPONSES AT SINGLE CELL LEVEL Ghent University
Accelerating preclinical and clinical developments in the field of immunotherapy against cancer and challenging infectious diseases have highlighted the need to monitor immune responses from large sample collections with sufficient sensitivity, robustness, while keeping costs withing reasonable limits.
Enzyme-linked immunosorbent spot (ELISPOT) has long been used as a workhorse for this purpose, but is typically restricted to ...
Vaccine-induced and ISG15-mediated immune responses to Bacterial Infection and Moyamoya Disease Ghent University
Increasing antibiotic resistance urgently calls for the rational design of novel antibacterial approaches. Building on unique biochemical mass spectrometry data, the present proposal aims to develop novel antimicrobial therapies and vaccines and to gain fundamental knowledge about the role of cellular infection in the development of a rare cerebrovascular disorder called Moyamoya. This will be achieved by multidisciplinary analysis of ...
Impact and viability of a novel mass PCR testing method as a pandemic-fighting strategy KU Leuven
The COVID-19 pandemic has not only affected our health, but also our lifestyles and our economies. Given its high non-symptomatic transmissibility, to stop a pandemic-causing pathogen like SARS-CoV-2 early on its tracks without needing to resort to economy-damaging measures, would have required a mass testing strategy very early on: according to some estimates up to 10% of a nation’s population should have been tested on a daily basis to ...
Exploration of an mRNA based nanovaccine platform and immunopeptidomics for the development of more effective tuberculosis vaccines. Ghent University
The World Health Organisation considers the development and implementation of new TB vaccines to be a top priority as vaccines are increasingly recognized as highly effective tools to mitigate antibiotic resistance. We recently developed Galsomes, mRNA based nanovaccines that upon intramuscular injection, specifically target immune cells to which they simultaneously deliver antigen encoding mRNA as well as glycolipids. As a result, they ...
OZR backup mandate: The influence of the gut microbiome on mRNA-based HIV-1 vaccination Vrije Universiteit Brussel
against the virus. This difference is partly due to the fact that HIV is a very variable virus that affects the immune system, which is
supposed to protect us. That is ...
Cofunding core facility - Flow cytometry Ghent University
A basic Flow cytometry infrastructure available to every UGent researcher, SOC' researcher and external researchers that, through immediately available training and guidance, allows in a quality (accurate and reproducible) manner both basic (pre-analytical) analyses and in-depth innovative immunological analyses and cell sorting in the most optimal financial and operational conditions.
Viruses as tool and target: A Synthetic Biology approach towards exceptionally potent prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines KU Leuven
Response to emerging infectious disease threats requires the development of potent vaccines. By using the yellow fever 17D (YF17D) vaccine as exceptionally powerful viral vector, a series of novel recombinant vaccines has been engineered against several (highly) pathogenic agents such as the Zika, Ebola, and SARS-CoV-2 viruses, by integrating insight from the molecular virology (replications strategy, antigen structure and pathogenesis) of ...
Non-covalent hapten-immunogen next generation anti-opioid nanovaccines Ghent University
The abusive use of opioid prescription drugs, often referred to as ‘the opioid crisis, has become a major global problem facing an exuberant number of deaths. To tackle this tremendous challenges, anti-opioid immunotherapy is considered as a promising therapy. The current generation of anti-opioid vaccines are based on random covalent conjugation of opioid haptens to a carrier protein in combination with an admixed adjuvant, and most likely ...
Spatio-temporal control of eosinophil functioning in allergic lung inflammation Ghent University
Severe allergic asthma is characterized by the presence of eosinophils in the airways and systemic eosinophilia. As a therapeutic strategy, eosinophils are depleted with biologics, although the long-term safety of depleting eosinophils is currently unknown. Using mouse models of allergic asthma, two subsets of eosinophils have been identified; "inflammatory" eosinophils expressing CD101 and "homeostatic" lung-resident CD101-negative ...