Projects
Development of a microbial network inference and analysis platform KU Leuven
The group of organisms too small to observe with the naked eye are called microbes. Despite their small stature, they have an outsized impact on global health and are important participants in most biochemical processes that take place on the planet. Historically, microbiological studies focused on species and their ability to carry out certain functions, such as nitrogen fixation in the soil or their capacity to become human pathogens. ...
Single cell network inference to characterize regulatory heterogeneity in brain cancer Ghent University
Extreme tumor heterogeneity is the main underlying cause for treatment failure in aggressive glioblastoma (GBM) tumors. For the development of more effective therapies, we need to fully understand the regulatory mechanisms at play. Increasing amount of single cell omics analyses allow to dissect complex tissues into specific cell states with their own gene regulatory networks (GRNs). I hypothesize that a spectrum of cell state-specific GRNs ...
Operation, development and maintenance of a European Marine Observation and Data Network, lot Biology Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
This project is about making marine data more available. ILVO, as the Belgian partner in EMODNET, is placing its historical ecological marine data on the Belgian part of the North Sea, no less than 100,000 data records, on the official European web portal. This makes them available for consultation and data mining. EMODNET (in full: European Marine Observation and Data Network) has the task of studying the ...
Identification of coding and non-coding cancer drivers from whole-genome re-sequencing data using gene regulatory network analysis. KU Leuven
Identification of coding and non-coding cancer drivers using gene regulatory network analysis
Regulation of gene transcription is an essential process, governing complex spatio-temporal expression patterns in every living cell. Gene regulation underlies processes such as the development of embryonic stem cells into various differentiated cell types, or the reprogramming of normal cells into cancer cells. Cancer is characterized by high ...
Exploiting innovative CRISPR approaches to identify new nodes in the transcriptional network of developmentally controlled cell death in plants Ghent University
Programmed Cell Death (PCD) is fundamental to the development of multicellular organisms However, our knowledge on developmentally controlled PCD in plants remains fragmentary, despite its undoubted significance for plant growth and reproduction
My team has established the Arabidopsis root cap as a novel model system for developmental PCD in plants This model has enabled us to identify first key transcription factors controlling ...
Industrial Academic Initial Training Network towards specific diagnosis and treatment of age-related gait and balance deficits KU Leuven
Balance and gait deficits are ubiquitous among the older population, and lead to enormous personal, occupational and health care burden. Emerging pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions to date have only small to moderate effects on these deficits. This is likely due to remaining fundamental questions on underlying mechanisms and treatment. The present project Keep Control consists of a rare EU-wide combination of experts from ...
Assessing the effects of habitat fragmentation on plant pollinator networks in dune slacks using metabarcoding and linking the network structures with plant fitness KU Leuven
A classic prediction of co-evolutionary theory is that mutualists should restrict their associations to a limited number of high-quality partners in order for the interaction to remain stable. However, in practice most mutualists either simultaneously or sequentially associate with multiple partners that confer the same reward. One of the best-known mutualisms is between plants and animal pollinators. In this mutualism, generalist plants that ...