Award ceremony
Winner 'Research Rally' Information stands
Announcement by representative Information Stands
Best 1' Poster pitch presentation
Announcement by drs. , representative of the Organising committee
Best 10' presentation
Announcement by
PhD Thesis Prize AY 2024-2025 of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences
Announcement of the laureates by prof. Piet Hoebeke, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences
Laureate Basic sciences: dr. Evi Duthoo - From DNA damage to immune dysfunction: How defects in cell cycle regulation and DNA repair shape inborn errors of immunity.
Supervisors: prof. Filomeen Haerynck & dr. Simon Tavernier
Accurate cell division and faithful genome maintenance are a cornerstone of life, driving the development and proper function of all organisms. These processes rely on a complex network of checkpoints and signalling pathways that detect DNA lesions, coordinate repair, and prevent the propagation of genomic errors. When these safeguards fail, genome instability arises with profound consequences for cellular function and human health. Such defects underlie a growing group of inherited disorders, many of which present as inborn errors of immunity (IEIs) with multisystem involvement, including immunodeficiency, developmental abnormalities, cancer predisposition, and features of premature ageing.
This PhD research investigates DNA repair- and DNA replication-associated IEIs, with a particular focus on improving functional diagnostics and expanding the clinical and molecular understanding of these disorders. First, the largest systematic analysis to date of chromosomal radiosensitivity (RS) across a broad IEI cohort was performed. RS reflects impaired repair of ionizing radiation-induced DNA damage and can serve as a functional readout of DNA repair capacity. This study demonstrates that RS testing is highly informative for selected DNA repair disorders, while also revealing its limited diagnostic utility across the wider IEI spectrum. Second, to complement existing functional assays and overcome associated limitations, a novel S-phase-specific micronucleus assay was developed and validated, enabling improved detection of defects related to DNA replication and S-phase DNA repair.
Finally, this thesis expands the spectrum of DNA replication-associated immunodeficiencies by identifying ATRIP deficiency as a novel cause of syndromic combined immunodeficiency. Through integrated cellular, molecular, and immunological analyses, this work provides new insights into the role of ATRIP in the replication stress response and immune system function.
Together, this research highlights both the strengths and limitations of RS-based assays, introduces a new functional approach for investigating genome instability, and expands the understanding of DNA replication-associated immunodeficiencies. More broadly, it underscores the importance of continued research and close integration between functional studies and clinical genomics to improve diagnosis and care for patients with genome instability disorders.
Laureate Clinical/Translational sciences: dr. Ewoud Jacobs - Suffocate the status quo: Exploring the role of blood flow restriction in knee osteoarthritis
Supervisors: prof. Erik Witvrouw, prof. Jan Victor & dr. Joke Schuermans
With an ageing population and rising rates of obesity, the number of people living with knee osteoarthritis is increasing rapidly. Although knee replacement surgery can provide relief in severe cases, many patients are not (yet) eligible for this procedure. As a result, treatment mainly relies on conservative approaches such as strength training. However, the effects are often limited, partly because patients experience reduced load tolerance and pain during exercise.
This PhD research investigated the use of blood flow restriction (BFR), a novel training technique in which blood flow to the legs is partially restricted during strength exercises. By temporarily reducing blood (and therefore oxygen) supply to the working muscles, BFR creates a strong training stimulus while using relatively light loads. This allows muscles to fatigue faster and promotes strength gains, pain reduction, and improvements in daily functioning, compared to exercising without BFR.
The main study of this PhD evaluated the clinical added value of BFR within a 12-week rehabilitation program. A total of 120 people with knee osteoarthritis were randomly assigned to either a BFR group or a control group. Both groups followed the same exercise program, but only the BFR group performed part of the training with blood flow restriction. After 12 weeks, the BFR group showed significantly greater improvements in pain, quadriceps strength, and functional performance. Importantly, these benefits were maintained or even increased one year after completing the program. At follow-up, the BFR group demonstrated superior outcomes in pain reduction, muscle strength, functional ability, and quality of life, with a reduced need for additional knee injections.
Laureate Health sciences: dr. Arthur Declercq - Epitope Odyssey: Data-driven tools to extend the known immunopeptide universe
Supervisors: prof. Lennart Martens & prof. Francis Impens
Within the cell, a complex flow of information is regulated at many different steps enabling linear DNA to create complex proteins, each dedicated to a specific task Because proteins perform most biological functions, studying them helps us understand health and disease and can inform better therapies.
My PhD focuses on immunopeptidomics, which studies short protein fragments (epitopes) displayed on cell surfaces by MHC molecules. These epitopes help the immune system to detect infections and abnormal changes such as cancer, making accurate epitope discovery essential for vaccines and immunotherapies. However, identifying epitopes remains difficult, partly because existing computational tools are not optimised for immunopeptides.
To address this, I developed bioinformatics methods that increase epitope identification from mass spectrometry data. I first improved MS²PIP models to better predict immunopeptide fragmentation in mass spectrometry, which is then used in a second algorithm, MS²Rescore, to substantially boost immunopeptide identifications. I refactored MS²Rescore into a modular, user-friendly tool (GUI and Python API) and extended it to timsTOF DDA-PASEF data by incorporating ion mobility information.
These tools have been integrated into established software environments from vendors, including MatrixScience, Bruker workflows, and MHCQuant, and are already being applied in practice: they are currently used to identify novel antigens for new Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) vaccines within the EU-funded Baxerna project.
Lastly, I built MHC-3PO, a deep-learning predictor designed to predict peptide–MHC pairs and better handle modified epitopes. Which could further help with the identification of immunopeptides. Overall, this work provides practical tools that expand epitope discovery and support future advances in vaccines and cancer immunotherapy.
PhD Thesis Prize AY 2024-2025 of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine
Announcement of the laureates by prof. Ann Martens, Dean of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine
Laureate non-clinical PhD: dr. Sara Roose - The implementation of serology in soil-transmitted helminthiases control programs: from lab to field
Supervisors: prof. Bruno Levecke, prof. Peter Geldhof & dr. Johnny Vlaminck
The most common worm infections in humans are caused by roundworms, whipworms, and hookworms. These worms affect over 1 billion people worldwide, mainly in (sub)tropical countries and in communities where sanitation is limited. Worm infections can cause illness and slow down children’s growth. To reduce these health problems, children receive deworming drugs once or twice a year at school. All children are treated; there is no individual diagnosis of infection.
National ministries of health need to monitor whether these deworming programs are working and decide if drugs should be given more or less often. To do this, stool samples from a limited number of children per school are checked under a microscope for worm eggs, which are shed by adult female worms living in the intestines. However, these microscope-based tests are slow, require trained staff and can miss infections.
This PhD research explored another option to monitor the deworming programs and make decisions about how frequently deworming drugs should be given: blood tests that look for antibodies. Antibodies are signs that the body has reacted to a worm infection.
What did this research find?
A scoping review showed that only a small number of blood tests for these worm infections have been developed. They are not yet widely used to monitor deworming programs.
In a large field study in Ethiopia, almost 7,000 children were tested using both stool and blood samples. Blood tests showed that more children had been exposed to worms than stool tests showed active infections. Blood test results could be used to make decisions about how often deworming should take place, but clear guidance on how to use these results is still needed.
An immunoproteomics study identified specific worm proteins that could be used to develop more accurate and standardized blood tests in the future.
Finally, a cost-efficiency study showed that collecting blood samples is one of the biggest costs for health programs. However, using the same blood sample to test for several diseases at the same time could make these programs more efficient.
Why does this research matter?
With further improvements, blood tests could help countries make better decisions about when and where to give deworming drugs to children, especially when deciding whether large-scale deworming can be stopped and monitoring whether infections return. This would support global efforts to control and eventually eliminate worm infections.
Laureate clinical PhD: dr. Fien Verdoodt - From brain to bottom: sneak peek into an omics approach for canine idiopathic epilepsy
Supervisors: prof. Myriam Hesta, dr. Sofie Bhatti & dr. Lieselot Hemeryck
Canine idiopathic epilepsy is the most common chronic neurological disease, for which management remains highly challenging. Despite the widespread use of anti-seizure medication to suppress epileptic seizures in these dogs, seizure freedom is only realized in 14-22% of the cases. Therefore, the need for adjunctive therapeutic options is pressing. In this sense the microbiota-gut-brain axis has recently gained more attention as a promising therapeutic target.
This doctoral research aimed to provide insights into the metabolic pathways involved in microbiota-gut-brain communication in dogs with idiopathic epilepsy. To this purpose, a comprehensive approach using metabolomics, microbiomics and nutritional interventions was applied to identify alterations in cerebrospinal fluid, plasma and feces in dogs with idiopathic epilepsy compared to healthy dogs. This approach resulted in the identification of altered metabolic pathways, including oxidative stress, vitamin B6, amino acid metabolism and gut microbial shifts. These findings can ultimately inform the improvement of nutritional management for dogs with idiopathic epilepsy. Consequently, a framework translating the findings from our research to potential applications in clinical practice was provided. Last but not least, future considerations were highlighted, as continued research is highly recommended to further unravel microbiota-gut-brain communication, as such providing opportunities to improve the management for dogs with idiopathic epilepsy.
Laureate clinical PhD: dr. Ingrid Vernemmen - Advanced three-dimensional insight leads the way to ultrasound-guided interventional cardiology in horses
Supervisors: prof. Gunther Van Loon, prof. Annelies Decloedt & prof. Wim Van den Broeck
The field of catheter-based interventions is almost non-existing in horses, despite the need for accurate electrophysiological characterisation and targeted treatment of heart rhythm disturbances. A major reason for this lacuna in equine cardiology is the lack of imaging modalities to provide adequate procedural guidance. Fluoroscopy, which is commonly used for these procedures in humans and small animals, does not provide sufficiently detailed imaging and would require a high radiation output due to the size of the equine thorax. Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is the main imaging modality in equine cardiology, but its imaging quality is hampered by interference of ribs, lungs and fat, limiting its use to guide catheter-based procedures. Intracardiac echocardiography (ICE) makes use of an imaging catheter which is navigated inside the heart and might have potential value for interventional guidance in horses. However, this technique is barely explored in horses. The goal of this project is to explore the use of echocardiography-based imaging modalities to guide catheter-based interventions in horses. A first study focuses on the development of an equine echocardiography simulator, in which both TTE and ICE can be performed and catheters can be introduced to simulate catheter-based procedures. In a second study, standardised ICE images that might be useful for catheter-based interventions are developed on the echocardiography simulator and validated in live horses. In a third study, these ICE images are used to develop and guide the transseptal puncture, an interventional technique during which the left heart is accessed using an transvenous instead of a more complex transarterial approach. By adapting both the imaging and catheterisation aspect of this human technique to the particular anatomy of the equine heart, this interventional procedure was performed successfully and safely in horses. The advancements presented in this thesis pave the way for the field of catheter-based interventions within equine cardiology, expanding the diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities for horses suffering from a variety of cardiac diseases.
PhD Thesis Prize AY 2024-2025 of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Announcement of the laureate by prof. Jan Van Bocxlaer, Dean of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Laureate: dr. Koen Deserranno - Technological advancements for pharmacogenomics and single cell transcriptomics in personalized medicine: Unmasking the hidden players
Supervisor: prof. Filip Van Nieuwerburgh & prof. Dieter Deforce
In my Ph.D., I focused on the development of novel strategies to advance the field of personalized medicine. Personalized medicine aims to find the optimal, patient-specific treatment option for each individual rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all treatment strategy. You can think of it as of each patient carrying its own unique lock, and instead of using a master key (i.e. the current one-size-fits-all treatment) to try to open the lock, you aim to find the optimal, most fitting key to unlock the optimal medication effect for each patient. In the first part of my Ph.D., I developed novel methodologies to better characterize the parts of our DNA blueprint responsible for the working of medication. In current settings, the DNA molecules of these genes are first fragmented into various tiny pieces to be compatible with sequencing, and must be puzzled back together afterward during analysis. As this puzzling exercise is quite complex, I optimized a DNA-sequencing strategy that can read larger stretches of these DNA regions in a single go. Doing so, my colleagues and I demonstrated that we could better predict how the variation in these genes impact the way patients will respond to medication. For the second part of my Ph.D., I approached personalized medicine from another perspective and developed two novel technologies that allow to discover RNA alterations specific to an individual ill patient at the single cell level. The first method that I developed allows to screen a cell based on its outward appearance first, followed by dissecting that same cell to profile its RNA content. Meanwhile, this strategy remains compatible with the leading single cell analysis platform commercialized by 10X Genomics. In the second method that I developed, I even delved deeper into the cell’s RNA infrastructure to study alternate versions of the same RNA molecule, called isoforms. By characterizing these isoforms, we can discover isoforms uniquely being present in e.g. a tumor, which can therefore serve as interesting targets for personalized anticancer therapies.