VIB KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research

🏆 The ASL Award for Biomedical Sciences (KU Leuven) was recently awarded to Jasper Janssens—an alumnus of the Stein Aerts Laboratory of Computational Biology— for his PhD research on decoding gene regulation in the fly brain 👨‍💻🧠 We catch up with Jasper to find out more about his award-winning research and what's he's been up to since his time at the VIB KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research ➡️ tinyurl.com/aslaward24

💜 In light of Alzheimer's Awareness Month this June, meet some of the scientists striving to at the VIB KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research. These researchers received grants from Stichting Alzheimer Onderzoek earlier this year to find out more about devastating disease.

Watch them explain their research ➡️ tinyurl.com/SAO-CBD2024
More on the SAO grants ➡️ cbd.sites.vib.be/en/news #/news/fifteen-vib-researchers-receive-an-sao-grant

🚨 New from the Van Den Bosch Lab, published in Brain! 🧠 The team studied the role of the - a gene that codes for a protein in the myelin sheath, the protective cover of peripheral nerves - which is disrupted in Charcot-Marie-Tooth ( ) disease.

As the PMP22 protein is produced by Schwann cells, the lab used human cells and animal models of CMT to understand the impact of PMP22 duplication on developing Schwann cells

Discover what they found out 👉 tinyurl.com/prioretal-brain-24

2024 was a blast! 🚀 Yesterday VIB KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research employees came together for our annual day of talks, networking and activities to spark new research ideas and foster our vibrant community spirit ✨

🏆 Congratulations to Sriram Balusu and Baptiste Libé-Philippot for winning the prestigious Ernest Solvay and Marc Hurard Prizes from the Queen Elisabeth Medical Foundation, presented by Her Royal Highness Princess Astrid at the Royal Palace in Brussels 👑

Find out more about their research at the VIB KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Researchh that lead to this recognition ➡️ https://cbd.sites.vib.be/en/news #/news/congratulations-to-the-winners-of-the-laureates-of-the-queen-elisabeth-medical-foundation-scientific-awards

Today is . We will bring you a full day of information on our animal research. Follow the stories and discover our research and the behind the scenes. .eara

We had the pleasure of welcoming Princess Astrid to our center yesterday! She received a personal tour of the lab of Prof. Van Den Bosch and Prof. Van Damme. During her visit, the Princess also had the opportunity to meet with ALS patients and their families.
Read more 👉 https://cbd.sites.vib.be/en/news #/news/princess-astrid-visits-the-vib-ku-leuven-center-for-brain-disease-research
Pictures: ©️Geert Vanden Wijngaert

🤝 This month, we teamed up with TAJO to inspire young people to get interested in neuroscience! 🚀👩‍🔬

TAJO is an organization that supports 475 young people in vulnerable home situations. Their aim is to increase the self-knowledge and confidence of youth through interactive workshops where they have the chance to engage with experts from a variety of professional fields. Their motto: Only those who are given opportunities can grab them!

We touch base with the researcher volunteers from Verstreken × de Wit labs and TAJO educators to find out more about their experience ⬇️

https://blog.vib.be/empowering-futures-tajo-and-scientists-join-forces-for-workshop-initiatives

☀️For , PhD students Dufie & Silke from the Laboratory of Neurobiology will take over our Instagram account (cbd.research)! 🧠 The lab studies the mechanisms underlying motor neuron diseases such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclersosis (ALS), using different disease models including iPSCs, zebrafish, flies, and mice 🧫🔬

Find out more about the lab ▶️ vandenboschlab.sites.vib.be/en

🐹🔬 Patrik Verstreken received a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Collaborative Pairs Pilot Project Award to study the mechanisms of synapse loss and recovery in hamsters, with the goal of gaining insights into how this could be mitigated in human neurodegenerative disorders.

The work will be carried out in collaboration with the Fan Liu Lab at FMP Berlin 🤝

We touch base with Patrik and the postdoctoral researcher on the project, Pablo Largo-Barrientos, to find out more ↘️

https://cbd.sites.vib.be/en #/news/tiny-sleepers-big-discoveries-what-hibernating-hamsters-could-tell-us-about-neurodegenerative-disorders

🎶 The Lo For Life Festival recently granted a cheque to the Laboratory of Neurobiology to continue funding research into . We catch up with the lab to find out more about their research and their patient advocacy efforts.

Read the blog 👇

High hopes for ALS Research with LoForLife Festival In early 2024, the LoForLife Festival granted a €135.688 cheque to the Laboratory of Neurobiology at the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease...

💤 We spend around one-third of our lives sleeping, yet scientists still don't entirely understand how sleep works. Published today in Nature Neuroscience, researchers from Sha Liu's Fly Sleep Lab at the VIB KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research used single-cell technology to define what sleep is at the smallest unit possible. This research, spearheaded by Joana Dopp, expands our understanding of this phenomenon by looking at gene expression in the brains of fruit flies ✨

Find out more ➡️ https://press.vib.be/fruit-flies-provide-insights-into-the-hidden-world-of-sleep
Read the publication ➡️ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-023-01549-4
More about the Fly Sleep Lab ➡️ https://liulab.sites.vib.be/en

Have you checked out our brochure? 🪼

You can find it online in PDF or as an interactive flipbook via our homepage (link in bio!)

Discover .research and what makes it such a unique location to do neuroscientific research 🧠✨

📍🗺️ Liver cells take on different roles depending on where in the liver they're located. However, until now it's been unclear whether this spatial variation is encoded in the genome or driven by environmental factors 🔍

The Stein Aerts Laboratory of Computational Biology, affiliated with both the VIB KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research and the VIB.AI – in collaboration with the Georg Halder Lab at the VIB KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology – explored this question in their latest work, published in Nature Cell Biology.

To to this, they used a combination of single-cell multiomics, spatial omics, massively parallel reporter assays, and deep learning.

"We found that hepatocyte function is, in fact, encoded in gene regulatory networks." Carmen Bravo González-Blas, first author of the study, shares. The team then trained a deep learning model, called , to take any DNA sequence and know whether it will have a specific effect on hepatocytes and in which part of the liver. They were then able to use this knowledge to engineer enhancers with specific activity levels and zonation patterns.

Short summary ➡️ https://cbd.sites.vib.be/en/news #/news/Decoding-the-livers-spatial-variation

Read the publication ➡️ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41556-023-01316-4

Another bite-sized science video dropped 🍕 Cell type directed design of synthetic enhancers 🧬👨‍💻 with Ibrahim I. Taskiran from the Stein Aerts lab of Computational Biology (VIB KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research x VIB.AI), published in Nature this month. Check it out ⤵️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhPne4i26wg

A special edition of 🔬✨ with a blog post by Christine Germeys - a PhD student in the Ludo Van Den Bosch Lab - on how sick "nurses" in our central nervous system play a role in ALS pathology 👩‍⚕️ First published in Dutch on blog. Read it here ➡️ blog.vib.be/how-sick-nurses-in-our-central-nervous-system-play-a-role-in-als-pathology

🚨 New paper from the Lynette Lim Lab, published in Neuron 📰

The variety of inhibitory neurons in the brain is well documented, but when and how they emerge during development is not well understood.

🔦 This research sheds light on the unique diversification timeline of somatostatin-expressing (SST+) inhibitory neurons.

Find out more ➡️ https://cbd.sites.vib.be/en #/news/New-insights-into-the-developmental-trajectories-of-somatostatinexpressing-inhibitory-neurons

Read the publication ➡️ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627323008875

📣👏 Professor Sandrine Da Cruz and collaborators received the Lalji & Family ALS Endowed Award for Innovative Healing (Healey Center for ALS, ) for the development of a therapy targeting FUS in people living with . This innovative treatment has been shown to slow down or even reverse the disease course in some patients.

Read the interview to find out more about the story behind the research & award ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eZaeKNhG

👩‍💻 🧬 Just published in Nature, pioneering research from the Stein Aerts Lab (VIB.AI × VIB KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research) used to guide the creation of synthetic sequences. Their model was able to design functional enhancers, "on switches" 🔛 that can activate specific cells. This is a significant step in decoding gene regulation and holds promise for the future of gene therapy. 🚀 Huge congrats to Ibrahim I. Taskiran and the entire team!

Find out more ➡️ https://cbd.sites.vib.be/en #/news/From-code-to-control-scientists-use-AI-to-craft-synthetic-DNA
Read the publication ➡️ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06936-2

🚸🔬 As part of Week, the Lim Laboratory of Interneuron Developmental Dynamics invited International School of Leuven primary school students to visit the lab, do experiments, and discover what it's like to be a real-life ! 🧠👩‍🔬 Learn more about their unique outreach experience ↘️ https://cbd.sites.vib.be/en #/news/Inspiring-the-Next-Generation-of-Neuroscientists

🔬🎨 An interview on their recent sci-art collaboration at the Center with Bethan Burnside, Neuroscience Communicator and Inclusion & Diversity Committee member at the VIB KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research, and Júlia Mota Albuquerque, visiting muralist and illustrator. Check it out on the VIB blog ↘️

At the intersection of diversity, art, and science A conversation with science communicator Bethan Burnside and artist Júlia Mota Albuquerque

EU Twinning projects foster scientific collaboration between EU Member States by partnering universities to exchange knowledge, expertise, and best practices. Find out more about two EU Twinning projects with collaborating partners at VIB KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research: Twin4Promis and PhasAGE ➡️ https://blog.vib.be/science-without-borders

⏩🎨 Check out this timelapse video of visiting artist Júlia Mota Albuquerque painting the mural in our foyer last week ↘️

Find out more about the Inclusion & Diversity Committee (VIB KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research) × Leuven Brain Institute initiative: https://cbd.sites.vib.be/en/news #/news/Diversity-in-Science-Week

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81deFPcJ3_U

Diversity in Science Mural by Júlia Mota Albuquerque A timelapse of the mural created as part of Diversity in Science Week (November 2023) at the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research, organized by ...

✨ What a week! The Inclusion & Diversity Committee members from the VIB KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research in collaboration with Leuven Brain Institute organized a series of events during their first ever “Diversity in Science Week” initiative (13-17 November) which included:

🎨 A mural painted by guest artist Júlia Mota Albuquerque on the theme of “diversity in science” in the Center's foyer.

📖 A Journal Club hosted by Professor Eline Jammaers titled "Disability and neurodiversity as sources of advantage in science careers".

🥪 An International Lunch at the VIB-UAntwerp Center for Molecular Neurology organized by their local Inclusion & Diversity Committee.

💭 A thought-provoking lecture by Professor Patrizia Zanoni titled "Diversity, equality and inclusion in science: Moving research and innovation beyond the myth of meritocracy".

👩‍🔬 An introduction by VIB's newly-appointed Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) officer, Agnes Uhereczky.

🎧 A Happy Hour (silent disco themed!), designed with different sound and sensory preferences in mind.

Read more about the initiative: https://cbd.sites.vib.be/en/news #/news/Diversity-in-Science-Week

Find out more about our Center's Inclusion & Diversity Committee: https://cbd.sites.vib.be/en/center-community/inclusion-diversity-committee

📣 Just out in : Pengfei Hou and colleagues from the lab of Bart De Strooper developed a new method for studying γ-Secretase and found insights into how it influences brain cells. Find out more ↘️ https://vib.be/en/news #/news/Researchers-unveil-brain-cell-mechanisms-of-gammasecretase

🤗 Alumni Evgenia Salta (now Group Leader at Nederlands Herseninstituut) & Elsa Lauwers (now CSO of food startup PALEO) from the De Strooper & Verstreken Labs at VIB KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research had the chance to reunite and share their career trajectories and insights with current PhDs and postdocs last night at the VIB Alumni Event ✨