What we are doing during the COVID-19 pandemic

This is a strange time for any workplace. People suddenly working from home, large changes in job duties, some people left without much to do while others are expected to manage whole new realms of bureaucracy while also continuing their full-time job. For us, as an immunology lab, this pandemic has an added dimension of peculiarity: our work is directly relevant to the ongoing situation.

Looking back on how we dealt with the outbreak, we were ahead of the curve. We put in place strict social distancing and work-from-home measures well before our institutes / government did (and, I would argue as an immunologist, our lab rules were more science-based than those later imposed on us). We also started a public education program on COVID-19, with an interactive Virus Outbreak simulator, an illustrated series translating scientific  articles into lay language and even released a kid's book explaining Coronavirus (with special thanks to lab members Dr Teresa Prezzemolo, Julika Neumann and Dr Mathijs Willemsen for translating this into different languages).

We also had lab members head back to the clinic to help with the capacity issues created by COVID-19. Dr Frederik Staels and Dr Erika Van Nieuwenhove suspended research to increase their clinical duties, and Dr Stephanie Humblet-Baron and Dr Mathijs Willemsen were on-call in case the system was overwhelmed.

Silke Janssen, processing patient blood

Our lab never completely shut-down though - we had important work that needed to be done. I'd like to call out Dr Susan Schlenner, Dr James Dooley and Dr Lubna Kouser who led the unglamorous but key administration on securing the safety of team members who had to be in the lab. Our Leuven lab was central to the processing of clinical COVID-19 samples. We usually think of clinical trials being run by MDs, but the work does not end after the blood is collected. I really want to call out the key contributions of Silke Janssens and Dr Teresa Prezzemolo. Without them, coming in all day, every day to process blood samples, clinical research of COVID-19 would have been crippled.

Dr Teresa Prezzemolo in the L2 labOur team, lead by Dr Stephanie Humblet-Baron, also analysed the samples prepared. We performed an ultra-high parameter analysis (far beyond state-of-the-art hospital diagnostics) of the T cell phenotype of COVID-19 patients: months of work from Dr Teresa Prezzemolo, Silke Janssens, Julika Neumann and Dr Mathijs Willemsen. Data analysis by Julika Neumann, Dr Carlos Roca, Dr Oliver Burton and Dr Stephanie Humblet-Baron identified a novel link between IL-10-producing Tregs and COVID-19 severity. We are now following this up to see if the link is useful as a biomarker or even is mechanistic in disease program. We have made our data an open resource (link), allowing other groups around the work to analyse our work. We are continuing to follow these patients and will soon have more and more information about why some patients remain completely healthy and others develop severe, even fatal, disease.

Dr Dooley and Dr Kouser (pre-COVID-19)We are not just clinical immunologists - we are also basic research immunologists. Mysterious virus triggering immune-mediated destruction of the tissue? We can deal with that. The whole lab contributed to the design of a new potential therapeutic, but I would especially like to call out the contributions of Dr James Dooley, Dr Oliver Burton, Dr Lubna Kouser and Fran Naranjo. Manufacturing is now complete and we are moving to pre-clinical testing. Hopefully we have a vaccine for SARS2 before our treatment is complete, but it is designed to deal with an unknown SARS3 equally well.

Suffice it to say, we have been as busy as we've ever been, and we will likely remain just as busy well after COVID-19 stops making the headlines. Which brings me to my final plea. Don't forget about scientific research. Unsung heroes during the pandemic, our staff are putting in an enormous effort. And yet we face an incredibly uncertain funding situation. Universities and research institutes have taken an enormous financial blow with this pandemic, and unless governments step in with a large financial rescue package, those scientific research staff who got us through the pandemic are going to be laid off in huge numbers. Even if you don't care about the moral imperative of looking after the people who stepped up when we needed them, there will be a SARS3 or novel flu pandemic in the future. We need to secure the research infrastructure to combat them right now. Science is not a factory that can be switched on and off at will - we need to maintain research excellence, scientific equipment and most of all key staff contracts over the long-term.

Laboratory Code of Conduct

Code of conduct

As a member of the Liston Lab, I understand

• There is no use of mice except under the mouse user principles
• There is no use of human samples or data without signing the patient data agreement
• Racism, sexism and homophobia are not acceptable
• Scientific fraud or plagerism are not acceptable

The laboratory is a shared facility with shared space and shared responsibility. As such

• I have read and agree to follow the laboratory protocols
• I will perform my lab duties as described in the “lab protocols” well and with regularity
• When I go on holidays I will prearrange for my lab duties to be fulfilled by someone else
• If I know in advance that performing my duties on schedule is not possible, I will consult with the lab manager on a case-by-case basis

Research laboratories can be a place of great stress, making inter-personal relationships intense. When dealing with other members of the laboratory:

• I will try to treat every person with professional respect
• I will try to be considerate of other’s feelings
• I will try to be respectful of other’s working conditions (eg, noise, tidiness)
• I understand that I work in a multicultural workplace, and that different people can have different cultural assumptions, reactions and methods of response than I do myself
  • I will try to assume the best rather than the worst from others’ actions
  • I will try to see the situation from the perspective of the other in a dispute
• I understand that tensions will rise and that we will not always be perfect
  • When I err, I will apologise
  • When I am apologised to, I will try to forgive
  • I will try not to hold a grudge
• I understand that public displays of affection or anger are not appropriate in the laboratory
• When disputes arise, I understand there is a responsibility to keep the impact on others minimal, as well as a responsibility to resolve the problem
• I understand that this code of conduct is an ambition for myself to achieve, rather than a standard against which I should judge others

Lab tech position

Job opportunity: we need a junior lab technician at the University of Leuven to be trained for PBMC isolation and flow cytometry analysis, to place a key role in clinical trials. We are after someone who is willing to listen and takes their work seriously. If you already know flow cytometry, great, if not, we will train you. Apply here, and take on a job that matters. 

Position available to work on diabetes

Great opportunity available for a scientist to work on an exciting diabetes project in the Leuven lab. Pure cell biology / endocrinology, so we welcome applications from beyond immunology! We have a research technician and post-doc position available, depending on the experience / background of the applicant. If you are interested, please apply!

Team photo

Liston lab at work

EXIMIOUS: how does the environment affect our health?

The European funded research project EXIMIOUS sets out to unravel the connections between our immune system and the environment we are exposed to. The Liston lab is proud to be a member of the EXIMIOUS endeavour. 

Each and every day we experience environmental exposures of all kinds, from the air we breathe, the food we eat, the objects we touch, the honking traffic on our way home. Depending on our lifestyle, diet, work and social environments, we all experience a different and complex set of exposures throughout our lifetime. The combination of these, starting as early on as during conception and prenatal phases, during our entire lifetime is defined as the exposome.

The World Health Organisation has drawn attention to the fact that environmental exposures can contribute to the induction, development and progression of immune-mediated, non-communicable diseases, such as autoimmune diseases, allergic diseases and asthma. These are chronic disorders, in which our immune system plays a key role, but for which the underlying causes and prevention strategies are still uncertain. Today, immune-mediated, non-communicable diseases affect about 9% of the European population, with women being two to ten times more likely to suffer from autoimmune diseases than men. If the environment we live in also contributes to these diseases, it is important to know in which way and find a means of prevention.

As of 1 January 2020 the European funded Horizon 2020 research project EXIMIOUS has set out to unravel the connection between the exposome and the immunome (the genes and proteins that make up the immune system), to better understand the role of the environment in immune-mediated diseases. Coordinated by Prof. Peter Hoet from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, the 15 EXIMIOUS partners from 7 European countries will collect blood and urine samples from population groups of healthy individuals of different ages, and of patients affected by autoimmune diseases, as well as from population groups with different occupations, such as park workers and miners. This will allow the researchers to build an overview of how different groups of people experience different types of environmental exposures, and how these have an impact on their health. Ultimately, the research efforts of EXIMIOUS aim to provide greater well-being, reduced healthcare costs and improved preventive policies for our society.

“In the EXIMIOUS project, we study how environmental exposures can affect our immune system, possibly leading to a specific immune signature or ‘fingerprints’. We will use these fingerprints as early predictors of immune-mediated diseases,” says Prof. Hoet, who is eager to start working on the EXIMIOUS project with an international and multidisciplinary consortium of experts in immunology, toxicology, clinical medicine, environmental hygiene, epidemiology, bioinformatics and sensor development.

With the ambition and enthusiasm to bring better prevention and help safeguard the health of citizens in Europe and worldwide, the EXIMIOUS team kicked-off the project on 10 February 2020 in Leuven, with representatives of its 15 partners from 7 European countries.

EXIMIOUS is part of the European Human Exposome Network, a joint venture that brings together nine research projects consisting of 126 partners in the largest exposome network worldwide. The EU has committed 106 million euro in funding towards the European Human Exposome Network. On 11 February 2020 in Brussels, EXIMIOUS and its collaborating projects ATHLETE, EPHOR, EQUAL-LIFE, EXPANSE, HEAP, HEDIMED, LONGITOOLS and REMEDIA gave voice to their commitment to work together towards a better and healthier future.

To keep up-to-date on EXIMIOUS’ progress follow @EXIMIOUS_H2020 on Twitter.

About EXIMIOUS The EXIMIOUS project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 874707. It is a five-year Research and Innovation Action (RIA) that officially started in January 2020 and will end in December 2024. It involves fifteen project partners from seven European countries and has a budget of 10.8 million euro.

Immune cell treatment offers hope in tackling neurodegeneration

From the Cambridge Independent

 

Lab activities

  

  

Lab dinner