Happy International Women's Day

From Magda Ali, Ntombizodwa Makuyana and Amy Dashwood, PhD students in our lab.

Congratulations to Dr Ana Acosta!

Well done to Dr Ana Acosta, who successfully defended her PhD today! Ana tackled a challenging and exciting project on the role of HNF1A in monogenic diabetes, generating a new mouse model and validating results in primary human islets. Her work dramatically alters the way we see HNF1A in glucose homeostasis and diabetes. A very productive PhD, performed at University of Lille, with Prof Caroline Bonner, and the University of Leuven, with my team. The 20th PhD student to graduate from my lab, and one of the last from our Leuven days! Great job Dr Acosta!

2021 Golden Pipette

The Golden Pipette has a long and illustrious record. Awarded at every lab retreat in recognition of a single very cool result, the Golden Pipette has been handed down through generations of talented scientists. This year the Golden Pipette was awarded to.... Ntombizodwa Makuyana, for her exciting new approach to creating an anti-inflammatory environment in the lung. Well done Tombi, for a stunning first year PhD result!

Congratulations to Ntombizodwa Makuyana

Congratulations to Ntombizodwa Makuyana, for winning the Babraham Institute prize for best poster by a first year PhD student!

A great start to a high potential PhD!

My Life in Science

An old talk I gave on my scientific career, with an emphasis on being a parent scientist and on my experience in seeing sexism in action in the academic career pathway:

Congratulations Dr Steffie Junius!

Congratulations Dr Steffie Junius, for achieving a successful PhD! Steffie has just completed an ambitious graduate program, studying the plasticity and fragility of regulatory T cells. It has been a pleasure watching Steffie grow into a successful scientist. Like every PhD, it had its ups and downs, its challenges and highlights, and I'm incredibly proud of how Steffie handled the entire process. I just wish I could have been there in person to celebrate her big day!

Dr Junius is now moving on to an exciting position as post-doctoral researcher at Janssen. Her major thesis work on regulatory T cell plasticity will hopefully come out soon - it is an elegant study with major implications for the design of cell therapy approaches using regulatory T cells. Well done Steffie!

Congratulations to Julika Neumann!

CCongratulations to the very talented Julika Neumann, who successfully defended her application for a competitive FWO PhD fellowship!

Just starting her PhD, Julika already has several major successes under her belt, including identifying a new primary immunodeficiency (stay tuned!) and spear-heading an open science study on COVID pathology.

We anticipate more great successes from Julika during her FWO fellowship!

Congratulations Dr Erika Van Nieuwenhove!

A huge round of congratulations for Dr Erika Van Nieuwenhove, who successfully defended her PhD. Erika set for gold standard for PhD defences, with an outstanding presentation and masterful question time. Erika's thesis was on inborn errors of immunity, with her PhD covering multiple new genetic mechanisms for PIDs, including mutations in ADA2 and Ikaros, plus a machine learning-driven approach to the diagnosis of JIA. The work is not yet finished either - stayed tuned for more Van Nieuwenhove papers on new genetic causes of neutropenia! A future leader in pediatric immunology and rheumatology!

Dr Lidia Yshii wins Golden Pipette

Congratulations to Dr Lidia Yshii for winning the 7th Golden Pipette at our joint Leuven-Cambridge lab retreat held at the Babraham.

The most elegant experiment is always a tough call at our lab retreat, but it is hard to go past a simple treatment that blocks 90% of the damage during traumatic brain injury!

Looking forward to accelerating this treatment into the translational space. 

Dokter Algoritme

Algoritmen kunnen inzichten bereiken waar een mens moeilijk toe komt. Computeralgoritmen kunnen almaar beter moeilijke diagnosen stellen, soms zelfs beter dan artsen. Immunologe Erika Van Nieuwenhove van de Leuvense tak aan het Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie (VIB) en haar collega’s melden in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases dat ze een zelflerend algoritme hebben ontwikkeld dat met bijna 90 procent zekerheid artritis bij kinderen kan vaststellen, louter op basis van een bloedtest.

Het gaat om de vaakst voorkomende vorm van reuma bij kinderen, maar omdat de ernst en de evolutie van de symptomen sterk kunnen variëren, is een diagnose stellen niet altijd gemakkelijk. Het algoritme evalueert alleen de samenstelling van het immuunsysteem van de patiënten. Het zal nuttig zijn om te bepalen welke behandeling aangewezen is.

Knack - 24 Apr. 2019 - Page 86