Our primary focus is to understand intestinal cell metabolism in health and disease, by using intestinal organoid, advanced biosensors and multi-parameter fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) approaches. By doing this, we aim at addressing the general challenges of microscopy-assisted tissue engineering, choosing the most appropriate matrices and producing physiologically relevant ‘tissue-on-a-chip’ platforms minimising the need for animal experimentation.

We develop and combine innovative biosensor-based approaches to visualize stem cell niche metabolism and oxygenation in organoids, tumour spheroids and related microtissue models ex vivo and in vivo.

Our group also provides service, access and expertise in basic cell and tissue engineering and hypoxia research: mammalian cell culture, bioprinting and fluorescence microscopy.

Lines of research

Within this research group, we focus on the following lines of research:

• O₂ and cell metabolism

• New tools for functional imaging of the intestinal organoids

• Multi-parameter assessment of spheroids and bioprinted microtissues

• Infrastructure and expertise support

Collaborations

We are part of GGIG, CRIG and GATE, and collaborate with:

• LECR (Prof. O. De Wever)
• Cell Death Investigation and Therapy (CDIT) Lab (Prof. D. Krysko)
• PBM, Polymer Biomaterials Group (Prof. S. Van Vlierberghe, Prof. P. Dubruel)
• Radiobiology group (Prof. A. Baeyens)
• Medical Cell Biology Research Group (Prof. J. van Hengel)

• Tissue engineering Lab, KU Leuven (Prof. H. Declercq)

• TU Graz, Austria (Prof. S. M. Borisov)
• The Monaghan Lab, Trinity College Dublin (Prof. M. Monaghan)
• Barroso lab, Albany Medical College, NY (Prof. M. Barroso)
• Epithelium Microenvironment Interaction Laboratory EMIL (Dr. J. Puschhof)

Publications