Laboratory art

Thank you to Orietta Cuppens for her laboratory art displaying techniques of working with mice.

Orietta is just finishing up her thesis studies for her Bachelor of Biomedical Laboratory Sciences at KH Leuven.

Lei Tian wins prestigious research award

Congratulations to Autoimmune Genetics Laboratory student Lei Tian, who just won the 2013 National Award for Outstanding Self-financed Chinese Students Study Abroad by the China Scholarship Council. The prize was granted for her doctoral research on regulatory T cells and diabetes development.

Departmental Day Poster Prize

Congratulations to Dean Franckaert, who won first place in the Departmental Day Poster Prize!

Lab move

Just a few last minute changes to the architectural plans, and we are nearly ready to move...

AIG lab in the news

from Knack

Research topics in the lab

As defined by the titles from our papers:

Henceforth, we shall be known as the "Mouse-Thymus-Autoimmune-Treg-microRNA laboratory".

Journals

The journals the lab publishes in:

Coauthors

An interesting idea from our head of Department - all of my coauthors in a word cloud:

In the news: Flanders Today

Q&A

Professor Adrian Liston

Professor Adrian Liston of life sciences research institute VIB headed the Belgian-Australian research team that discovered the genetics determining the strength of the immune system.

Which missing link in the immune system did you find? 
We focused on the regulatory T cells, which determine how our immune system reacts to possible health threats. In short, these T cells are in charge of the activity of white blood cells – the cells that defend us against viruses. When there are not enough regulatory T cells, our immune system can be overactive and cause allergies or autoimmune diseases such as diabetes and arthritis. In the opposite case, an underactive immune system allows infections and tumours to grow. We have now identified the genetic programme that sets the number of regulatory T cells, which should help us to keep the immune system ideally balanced.

Until now, you have worked with genetically modified mice 
Yes; the next step is to design and test drugs for humans. We are contacting academic research groups and pharmaceutical companies. Basic medicine can be developed in a time span of five years, but the clinical trials to perfect the working of the drugs can take another 10 years. In the near future, our findings will hopefully help, for example, to kill off the remaining cancer cells after chemotherapy. Later, we hope to develop the means to give an 80-year-old back an immune system that is as strong as that of a healthy teenager.

Was the Australian connection coincidental? 
No, I have Australian roots and finished my PhD at the Australian National University in Canberra. During my research there, I collaborated with experts, including the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne. Four Australian scientists from this institute took part in this recent research project. The team in Flanders consisted of seven researchers at the Autoimmune Genetics Laboratory of VIB and the University of Leuven. Our project lasted four years and was funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation through Science and Technology and the European Research Council. The results were published in the scientific journal Nature Immunology.

Interview by Andy Furniere

(see original in Flanders Today)

Scientists discover molecular pathway that controls the strength of the immune system

Researchers led by Adrian Liston at VIB and the University of Leuven have discovered the genes that control the number of regulatory T cells in the body, a critical determinant for setting the strength of immune responses. This discovery may be an important starting point for the development of new drugs for the treatment of diseases of the immune system. The research has been published by the prestigious journal Nature Immunology.

In ideal circumstances the immune system is in balance, protecting us from infections and keeping us healthy. This balance can be disrupted, causing diseases of the immune system. An underactive immune system allows infections and tumours to grow, while an overactive immune system can drive allergies and autoimmune diseases such as diabetes and arthritis.

Regulatory T cells are a type of white blood cells that are specialised to keep the immune system in balance. To find out how the right level of balance is achieved, Adrian Liston, an expert in autoimmunity, teamed up with an Australian research group headed by Daniel Gray, an expert on cell death at Australia’s Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. In a 4 year research project funded by the IWT (agency for Innovation by Science and Technology) and the European Research Council, the two research groups found a network of genetic control that determined whether regulatory T cells lived or died, setting the level of immune activity in mice. The genes involved are almost unchanged between mice and humans, providing strong hope that the same pathway is active in patients.

“By working out the genetic control mechanism over regulatory T cell numbers we create a real challenge and opportunity for pharmaceutical researchers”, said Professor Liston. “We now have the blueprint for controlling the level of immune activation. The next step is to identify drugs which influence this system so that we can rectify disturbances when they occur. In theory, such drugs could be used to combat everything from cancer (when the immune system needs to be stimulated to clear cancer cells) to allergies and autoimmune diseases (when the immune system needs to be inhibited).”

(klik voor Nederlands)

Relevant scientific publication

The study is published in the leading journal Nature Immunology:

Update on Tuesday, July 16, 2013 at 11:13AM by Adrian Liston

Covered in ScienceDaily and SciCasts. Also now in Greek.