Projects
New sensors and strategies for the visualization of nanoscale activity and 3D cell structure KU Leuven
Living systems use nanoscale organization to compartmentalize and guide the chemical processes occurring inside them. This spatiotemporal heterogeneity is thought to be a key concept for e.g. signaling specificity, yet is difficult to study as it can only be measured in the intact cell. However, at the current state of the art it is difficult to measure chemical (signaling) processes at high spatiotemporal resolution, or to measure whole-cell ...
Studying Dscam function in synaptic connectivity at single cell level. KU Leuven
Axonal branching is an essential mechanism in nervous system function, as it allows a single neuron to connect to multiple post-synaptic targets and thus increases the complexity and connectivity of neural networks. Collateral formation could be a therapeutic target to promote functional recovery in a wide range of nervous system diseases and injuries. However, the mechanisms allowing the formation and stabilization of specific ...
Corpus linguistics in the Greek papyri: developing a corpus to study variation and change in the post-classical Greek complementation system KU Leuven
The aim of this PhD project is to advance the corpus-linguistic study of the Greek papyri, a large diachronic corpus (3rd century BC – 8th century AD) of non-literary Greek. It consists of two central parts. The first part is focused on corpus design: starting from the transcribed (XML) version of these texts, it describes a pipeline model to supply the papyri step for step with linguistic information, using natural language ...
Development of integrated single virus technology to study the early replication steps of HIV KU Leuven
HIV-1 requires various interactions with cellular cofactors to complete its viral replication cycle. In the first place, viral entry involves the interaction of the viral envelope protein with the host cell CD4-receptor and the CXCR4 or CCR5 co-receptor, resulting in membrane fusion and the release of the viral cone into the cytoplasm of the host cell. During the transport to the nucleus, the viral RNA is converted into double-stranded viral ...
Assessing dimerization-based regulation of GPCRs using live-cell activity and interaction sensing in genomically-labelled neurons KU Leuven
G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the eyes and ears of the cell. They are heavily implicated in cell functioning and disease. All GPCRs appear to signal via a few highly conserved pathways, raising the question of how cells maintain signaling specificity. Homo- and hetero-dimerization of GPCRs is thought to be an important regulatory mechanism, though its role remains poorly understood partly due to conflicting experimental results.
...Label-free imaging of cellular activity using second harmonic generation KU Leuven
The ability to treat neurological and psychiatric disorders is still being hindered by a fundamental lack of knowledge of the human brain. Moreover, the aging population will cause an even higher societal burden to come up with effective treatments for our nearest and dearest. The enormous amount of brain cells, which are moreover highly interconnected ask for a diagnostic tool with three important properties. The spatial resolution should be ...
Nerve regeneration by human dental pulp stem cells in hydrogel based scaffolds: characterization by label-free optical imaging Hasselt University
Nerve regeneration by human dental pulp stem cells in hydrogel based scaffolds: characterization by label-free optical imaging Hasselt University
Chemoenzymatic labelling of hybridization probes for spatially super-evolved omics KU Leuven
Microscopy and more specifically fluorescence microscopy is a beloved tool of many scientists to study small biological structures that cannot be resolved by the human eye. Still, even regular fluorescence microscopy is limited in resolution and detection of biomolecules that reside at the nanometer level require an improvement in resolving power. As a solution, super resolution microscopy has been developed over the years, realizing ...