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Health News 2021

Are bats responsible for the coronavirus? It’s not...

  Since the beginning of the pandemic, bats have been blamed for transmitting the SARS-Cov-2 virus to humans. There is no scientific proof that this is true. Meanwhile, the...

Parental burnout linked to Western individualism

  Parental exhaustion is universal. Stress-related suffering in parenting has received increased attention in recent years. Are parents in certain countries more affected by the...

Health News 2020

When bacteria hang on tight

  The small world of bacteria never ceases to amaze us. Prof. Yves Dufrêne’s team has just demonstrated that a staphylococcus is capable of clinging fiercely to a host cell in the...
Health and technology

A prosthesis continues its path to the market

A bionic prosthesis ‘Made in UCLouvain’ is on the doorstep of one of the field’s world market leaders. Since 1 October, Prof. Renaud Ronsse’s team has been developing its prosthesis in...

Silica dust toxicity exposed

The inhalation of silica dust in mines, quarries and construction sites causes serious diseases such as silicosis and bronchial cancers. Its toxicity, while proven, hasn’t been well understood...
Health

Preventing the coronavirus-cell bond

While some scientists seek a vaccine against the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), others try to understand the virus’s entry mechanism. For months Prof. David Alsteens's laboratory team has...
Science and health

Piecing together the primary lymphoedema puzzle

What causes lymphoedema, the swelling of parts of the body from the build-up of lymph fluid? Until recently, no one knew. This was before research carried out by Prof. Miikka Vikkula and his...
Environment

Never before seen fusion of giant black holes!

© Ingrid Bourgault Huge black holes that aren't supposed to merge have ... merged! Thus forming a monster 142 times the mass of the sun. It’s a totally unexpected observation that calls...
Coronavirus : research

Better COVID-19 prevention, detection and treatment

Over just a few weeks, COVID-19 has been ‘invited’ into several research projects at UCLouvain, particularly at the Centre for Applied Molecular Technologies (CTMA), where half a dozen...
Coronavirus: research

COVID-19: detection and (de)contamination

COVID-19 has been ‘invited’ into several research projects at UCLouvain, particularly at the Centre for Applied Molecular Technologies (CTMA), where several studies or programmes related to...
Environment

Trade: tomorrow’s sustainable sectors?

How can we make global trade more sustainable? By measuring the stability and intensity of the relationships between actors in raw material supply chains and production areas. Patrick...
Environment

Radioactive fallout contamination in Europe

A high-resolution spatial map reveals the distribution of soil contamination in Europe by Caesium 137 from nuclear tests and the Chernobyl accident. It’s a radio-element harmful to health but...
Health

A stockpile of neurons in the hypothalamus!

The hypothalamus is a structure in the brain that links our nervous system to our hormonal system. The team of Prof. Frédéric Clotman traced the development of the neurons which compose it and...

The brain: less compartmentalised than expected!

What if the part of our brain that we thought was dedicated to visual information also processed other sensory information? Olivier Collignon, a neuropsychology professor, and his team...
Health

Making bacteria bilingual

Like all bacteria, streptococci ‘talk’ to each other via pheromone and sensory receptor systems. Most speak only one ‘language’. What if it was possible to make them (at least) bilingual?...
Health

A crack in E.coli’s wall

E.coli’s envelope is difficult to penetrate and frustrates those who try to find new antibiotics to fight the bacterium. Two of the envelope’s three layers are secured firmly by a lipoprotein,...
Health

Taking tumours’ breath away

For some time now researchers have been trying to neutralise a key player in the survival and multiplication of tumour cells, without much success. But today a team of researchers led by...

Staphylococcus aureus: a hibernating bacteria!

Why doesn’t Staphylococcus aureus respond to antibiotics? And why, when treatment appears to have worked and is stopped, are infection relapses frequent? To escape antibiotics and the body’s...
Health

New treatment for rare diseases

A fundamental research discovery is leading to treatments for rare diseases affecting the immune system. Patients around the world are being treated thanks to this success story authored by...
Health

‘Bacterial soldiers’ against tuberculosis?

While everyone is watching COVID-19, another lung infection continues to take its toll: tuberculosis. Dr Anandi Martin, a visiting researcher at UCLouvain, is interested in bacteriocins. These...
Health

Broad spectrum antivirals: a complicated mission … but...

Between their parasitic activity and ability to mutate, viruses are difficult to target effectively with antivirals. But scientists aren’t giving up. The team of Thomas Michiels (de Duve...
Coronavirus

Lock the door on coronavirus

How does the new coronavirus enter our cells and how do we keep it from entering? The team of David Alsteens (LIBST) will tackle these two questions with the help of state-of-the-art...
Health

The great dilemma: isolate or immunise

Modelling the impact of isolation measures is what authorities turn to when making decisions concerning COVID-19. UCLouvain researcher Emmanuel Hanert has adapted a mathematical model...
Society

Volunteering is good for your health!

Giving your time makes you feel better and keeps the doctor away! These are the results of a vast Belgian study on the benefits of volunteering led by researchers from the UCLouvain...
Health

How do cells get their vitamins?

Vitamins A, B, C, D, E, K, folic acid. You certainly know these vitamins. But have you ever heard of thiamine, also called vitamin B1? Jérôme Savocco and Sylvain Nootens and their colleagues...

Health News 2019

Health

GSK Award for Sophie Lucas’s team

On 14 December, Prof. Sophie Lucas and her team at the UCLouvain de Duve Institute received the prestigious GSK Award from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation Academy of Medicine for their...

Reoviruses: weapons against cancer?

Prof. David Alsteens recently received two scientific awards for his team's research on initial interactions between a virus and a cell – research that could one day lead to new antiviral or...

Disarm recalcitrants colorectal cancers

Cyril Corbet led the race this year: after receiving the Galen Prize for Pharmacology, he was named FNRS research associate. Quite a haul for this half-marathon enthusiast. And at the finish,...
Science and health

Paediatric palliative care: which quality of life?

Paediatric palliative care aims to improve the quality of life of critically ill children, often at the end of their lives. Preventing or relieving physical pain, treatment-related symptoms,...
Science and health

The placenta from every angle

A recent publication by UCLouvain’s Prof. Greet Kerckhofs reports on a new method for observing mouse placentas during growth: a three-dimensional, non-invasive and quantitative virtual...
Santé

Prebiotics in forgotten vegetables

On 12 September, UCLouvain Prof. Nathalie Delzenne presented FOOD4GUT’s conclusions and prospects. An interdisciplinary project funded by the Walloon Region, FOOD4GUT focuses on sustainable...

Body signals: sensing and measurement

UCLouvain researchers are shaking up research in psychology. Interoceptive awareness, the ability to feel the inner states involved in emotional experiences, may have been measured a bit too...
Science and health

Paediatric cancers: a small step towards targeted therapy

Today, cancer research is advancing by leaps and bounds for adults. Not so for children, whose cancers are much rarer. Anabelle Decottignies and her team at the de Duve Institute have found a...
Science and health

A new molecular target in the fight against cancer

On 7 May, Dr Anabelle Decottignies, a bioengineer by training, an FNRS Senior Research Associate and the head of a research team at the de Duve Institute, received the Allard-Janssen Prize in...

Genetic architecture of kidney diseases

The research of Prof. Olivier Devuyst (IREC) aims to improve the efficiency of dialysis through the study of genetic renal diseases. His work has been rewarded twice in recent weeks....

AIDS: better understanding of virus resistance

The Medical Microbiology Laboratory has acquired state-of-the-art equipment to better detect mutations in the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. A first in Belgium. According to UNAIDS,...
Science and health

Bacteriocins. An alternative to antibiotics?

Bacteria are increasingly resistant to antibiotics. Today, some of these microbes are even completely impervious. The search for alternatives is urgent. Dr Johann Mignolet, visiting researcher...
Environment

Drug traces in water

Traces of drugs are in water worldwide. While the impact of such pollution on the environment and human health is still largely unknown, researchers of the Louvain4Water at UCLouvain are...
Environment

When soils filter wastewater

In Wallonia, one-tenth of domestic waste water doesn’t pass through a waste water treatment plant. Is it pollution? Not necessarily, because soils can filter and purify wastewater naturally...

Salsify experiment: nudging for better eating

UCLouvain psychology researchers have shown that nudging techniques can positively influence eating behaviours, including when it comes to increasing the consumption of a ‘forgotten’...
Environment

Oils against insects

At a time when scientists are raising the alarm over the accelerated disappearance of insects, it may seem astonishing to exhibit the results of research aimed at destroying them. But fighting...
Health

Enzymes that clean house

A Welbio team from the de Duve Institute has just published the results of a long-term research project that explains two congenital metabolic diseases characterised by a defect in neutrophils...
Health

South Africa: successful treatment of...

In 2006, South Africa experienced an tuberculosis epidemic that still leaves traces today. WHO quickly put in place recommendations to eradicate the disease. Dr Anandi Martin, a microbiologist at...

Health News 2018

Health

Half a million for vascular abnormalities

On Thursday 6 December the King Baudouin Foundation presented to Prof. Miikka Vikkula of the UCLouvain de Duve Institute the €500,000 Generet Award for Rare Diseases for his research on...
Health

Teeth for the spinal cord

Using dental stem cells to treat spinal cord injuries: that’s what Prof. Anne des Rieux, a researcher at UCLouvain's Louvain Drug Research Institute (LDRI), has initiated. This week, she presents...
Health

New monoclonal antibody in clinical development

Long-term research at UCLouvain has led to a possible new biomedicine: an anti-GARP monoclonal antibody. It may soon be clinically tested as a promising new treatment option for cancer...
Health

A universal method for immobilising proteins

A team from UCLouvain's Institute of Condensed Matter and Nanosciences has established a self-assembly method for proteins, which are complex molecules. This represents a giant leap in the...
Health

A ninth tower serves as a bridge

On 12 October, the UCLouvain campus in Woluwe will inaugurate a new multipurpose building. Built next to the Saint-Luc University Hospital, the Laennec Tower will house the Institute of...

A bacterium that preys on…bacteria

  Dr Géraldine Laloux has received an ERC Starting Grant. This prestigious European funding will help her continue research on a small bacterium with an atypical life cycle....

Rhythm on the brain

Professor Sylvie Nozaradan has received an ERC Starting Grant. This prestigious European funding will help her continue her research on the brain’s perception and production of rhythms. Here’s...

Sexual reproduction: the mysteries of meiosis

Dr Corentin Claeys Bouuaert has received an ERC starting grant. This prestigious European funding will help him continue his research on the DNA biochemistry of sexual reproduction. There...

Success stories du Secteur santé

Les chercheurs du Secteur des sciences de la santé de l’UCLouvain réalisent un travail formidable. Découvrez en images leurs découvertes les plus remarquables au travers des « Top health...

Benoît Desguin

Cofactors are to enzymes what tools are to workers. Benoît Desguin has discovered a new ‘tool’, a cofactor containing nickel, and intends to identify the family of enzymes that use it to...
Health

When the virus ‘velcros’ to a cell

  UCLouvain researchers have discovered the essential role played by a glycoprotein present on the surface of herpesviruses. These viruses are responsible for several diseases, which...

Lipids and heart attacks

For the past five years, UCL professors Sandrine Horman and Christophe Beauloye have been studying one of the major players in thrombosis: blood platelets. Under certain conditions, they can...
Health

Stressed out staph

A mechanobiological discovery made by using an atomic force microscope creates prospects in the fight against nosocomial diseases caused by staphylococci. Sometimes referred to as a...
Health

The secret weapons of S. salivarius

Streptococcus salivarius is a bacterium that lives peacefully in our digestive tract. A team of researchers at UCL has highlighted the communication and attack mechanisms that allow it to fight...
Health

Aggressive leukaemia

The Belgian federal government supports fundamental research by conferring Quinquennial Awards to two Belgian researchers. This year, the francophone winner was Stefan Constantinescu, a University...
Health

Preventing cardiac hypertrophy

UCL researchers have discovered a new mechanism at work in cardiac hypertrophy, which could pave the way to a more targeted treatment of this potentially harmful condition. The least that can...
Health

Promoting appropriate prescriptions for the elderly

Many people aged 75 or older, including those in nursing and care homes and hospitals, receive inappropriate treatment. This is the research subject of Prof. Anne Spinewine, who on 12 December...
Health

A new molecule for preventing metastasis

Prof. Pierre Sonveaux and his team at the UCL Institute of Experimental and Clinical Research (IREC) identified a new molecule that can prevent metastasis. Three years ago, he had confirmed a...
Health

Weakening the defences of bacteria

Antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains are multiplying. To forestall a serious public health problem, new molecules must be developed. At the de Duve Institute, Jean-François Collet and his team...
Health

Chronic pain: a new path toward treatment?

Sufferers of chronic pain in a limb perceive the space around the limb less accurately, according to a study by Lieve Filbrich and Valéry Legrain, researchers at the UCL Institute of Neuroscience....

Antibiotics and cystic fibrosis: a good idea?

UCL researchers have made the troubling discovery that macrolides, the antibiotics frequently prescribed to sufferers of cystic fibrosis, foster resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa....

Inside the brain of the profoundly deaf

The brain is divided into areas, each of which processes specific information. If a certain type of information is missing – such as sounds – the brain reorganises itself... but not at random!...

Face grafting: a fast-evolving field at UCL

For over ten years, facial reconstruction has been a central area of interest for UCL researchers. Their objective is to develop innovative techniques to adapt as closely as possible to the...

A better understanding of melanoma’s mechanisms

Anabelle Decottignies’s team just discovered that melanoma doesn’t develop like most cancers, making it more difficult to treat. For more than 15 years, Anabelle Decottignies, FNRS Research...

The missing antioxidant

A team of UCL researchers recently discovered the function of Nit1, a metabolic repair enzyme. A lack of it could cause a metabolic disorder. Our cells use oxygen to burn sugars and fat in...

Using PET scans to improve Hodgkin’s lymphoma treatment

Using a PET scan to analyse a tumour leads to better treatment of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the white blood cells known as lymphocytes. The technique has been studied and validated by the...

Antibiotics: What are the effects on baby mice?

Does being treated with antibiotics early in life have an impact in adulthood? That’s the question Sophie Leclercq tried to answer by observing the behaviour of mice exposed in utero to...

More accurate MRIs: coming soon?

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), already an very effective technology, could soon become even more precise. The MCube H2020 project is working toward more accurate diagnoses. We tend to forget...

Myocardial infarction: how to prevent a second heart attack

One-quarter of the 10,000 heart attacks per year in Belgium are followed by a second one. That figure drove the Fondation Louvain (Louvain Foundation) to launch the Cardio fundraising campaign for...

IT Targets: advancing cancer immunotherapy

Over the past five years all hopes for combatting cancer have turned to immunotherapy. The IT Targets project is doing its part by targeting GPCR proteins. On paper immunotherapy is...

When bacteria fight back

Some bacteria that cause disease in humans are becoming more resistant to antobiotics—so resistant that some experts see ‘antibiotic resistant’ infections as tomorrow’s plague. Fortunately,...

Safer restoration of female fertility after cancer: the...

  Cancer treatment can save your life; it can also make you infertile. UCL pioneered post-cancer female fertility restoration by freezing ovarian tissue prior to treatment and subsequently...

Towards a treatment for venous malformation?

Angiomas, vascular malformations that can provoke numerous symptoms, afflict approximately 6,000 people in Belgium. For 20 years, Dr Laurence Boon, coordinator of the Centre for Vascular Anomalies...

Adolescent depression: Can mindfulness prevent it?

Adolescents are of course not immune to feeling blue or even depressed. Researchers are betting on mindfulness as a means of prevention, especially at UCL, a pioneer of child mindfulness. Prof....

Bacterial biofilms under the microscope

Many infections contracted in hospital are linked to the formation of biofilms. How do these sticky layers of bacteria form on the surface of some medical devices? Can we counteract them? At UCL,...

Health and undocumented immigrants: a social conundrum

Personal opinions and politics aside, the presence in Belgium of undocumented migrants raises the delicate question of their access to health care. Researchers at the UCL Institute of Health and...

MammoNote: facilitating diagnosis of breast cancer

Breast cancer afflicts one in eight Belgian women. Early detection increases the chance of survival, thus screening is recommended. The Mammotest screening programme was introduced in Belgium and...

A treatment for heart failure?

One in five people suffer from heart failure: the heart fails to pump blood correctly. This eventually leads to death, but UCL researchers and doctors may have found a treatment. The heart is a...

What happens in the mind of an anxiety sufferer?

In Belgium, between 7 and 10% of the population suffers from anxiety disorder (AD). What exactly goes on in their minds? There are different types of AD: phobias, OCDs, generalised...

Immunotherapy: arming the body against cancer

Immunotherapy is one of the most promising treatments for certain cancers. At UCL, several research teams are studying our immune mechanisms to find new treatments.  Every day our bodies...

Examining molecular mechanisms to target treatments more...

A cell’s surface is made of a lipid membrane that contains many receptors. They can send signals from outside to the cell interior, sometimes to adverse effect, such as inflammation. Numerous...

Robots that help doctors

Medical robotics and related technologies are booming. At UCL, engineers and doctors are working together to meet the technical, human, ethical and financial challenges of future medical practice....

Disasters: robots to the rescue

Imagine an earthquake or nuclear accident disaster area where it’s impossible to send in rescuers without putting their lives at risk. At UCL, Nicolas Van der Noot is looking to robots to do the...

From the lab to the hospital: medical robotics, a team...

Exoskeletons, microsurgery robots, robotic prostheses—robotics and the medical sector have never complemented each other so well. In 2014, UCL created Louvain Bionics, a centre of expertise unique...
Actualités

When bacteria fight back

Some bacteria that cause disease in humans are becoming more resistant to antobiotics—so resistant that some experts see ‘antibiotic resistant’ infections as tomorrow’s plague. Fortunately,...

How emotional intelligence can make you healthier

Being able to identify, understand, express, manage and use our emotions helps us in so many facets of our lives. According to a recent UCL study, emotional intelligence (EI) can even improve your...

Nisha Limaye awarded the Prix Lambertine Lacroix for...

Nisha Limaye’s work on the signalling pathway involved in 80% of venous malformation cases not only won her a prize but has created new treatment possibilities. Every four years the Prix...

Obesity and bacteria: In gut we trust

Humanity faces an unprecedented epidemic of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Intestinal bacteria and their dialogue with the immune system have something to do with it. We have...

Better big data analysis for better epidemic management

Using big data to precisely and easily predict an epidemic’s course or a virus’s spread—that’s the seemingly incredible goal of Jean-Charles Delvenne, a researcher at the Mathematical Engineering...

IgGreen, for the most ethical pharmacological proteins

Using plant cells to produce diagnostic and pharmacological proteins—that’s the challenge taken up by the researchers at IgGreen, a funding recipient of UCL’s ‘First Spin-off’ programme. IgGreen’s...

Senegal: using big data to anticipate food shortages

Four young researchers of the Environmetrics and Geomatics Laboratory, led by Prof. Pierre Defourny of the UCL Earth and Life Institute, have been recognised by the Massachusetts Institute of...

What controls body movement?

Gaining a thorough understanding of the mechanisms that initiate and inhibit body movements can lead to new treatments for diseases that disrupt them, such as Parkinson’s disease and Tourette...

Pomegranate for muscle loss?

UCL researchers have discovered that urolithin B, a substance derived from pomegranate peel, slows the loss of muscle mass. The discovery could lead to a new treatment. Muscle is the most...

An anti-adhesive treatment to fight staphylococcus aureus

A team led by Professor Yves Dufrêne of UCL’s Institute of Life Sciences, in collaboration with Trinity College Dublin, recently discovered a molecule that can prevent a huge problem for hospitals...

Tuberculosis: Where do we stand?

In Belgium, 1,000 cases of tuberculosis are reported each year. On the occasion of World TB Day, 24 March, we ask where UCL tuberculosis research stands. Tuberculosis is far from disappearing....

Bacteria and bleach: all-out war

UCL de Duve Institute researchers discovered that bacteria have a defence against our immune system’s bleach. Could this lead to new antibiotics? To defend itself against the many attacks to...

Using electricity to treat the effects of CVA

Most people who survive a cerebrovascular accident (CVA) suffer impaired motor skills. UCL researchers may have found a way to boost their ability to relearn them.  Like all our organs,...

2020

Health

How do cells get their vitamins?

Vitamins A, B, C, D, E, K, folic acid. You certainly know these vitamins. But have you ever heard of thiamine, also called vitamin B1? Jérôme Savocco and Sylvain Nootens and their colleagues...