Robotsoldaten van het Bloed

Wout is een normale jongen van 7 jaar die toevallig een primaire immuundeficiëntie heeft, veroorzaakt door een genetische
fout in zijn afweersysteem.
Dit is het verhaal over het leven van Wout en hoe het immuunsysteem werkt. Iedere maand naar het ziekenhuis voor behandelingen is voor hem de normaalste zaak van de wereld. Hij vindt het niets bijzonders, maar hij weet hoe bang zijn ouders zijn wanneer hij ziek wordt. Wout vindt het veel belangrijker dat zijn
vriendjes gevaccineerd zijn zodat hij met ze kan blijven spelen!

Robotsoldaten van het Bloed!

Battle Robots of the Blood

• A new children’s book ‘Battle Robots of the Blood’, authored by Institute researcher Prof. Adrian Liston, launches today on Amazon.
• Expert immunology knowledge and beautiful illustrations combine to create an engaging story about our immune system.
• The books tells the story of Tim, a seven year old boy with a faulty immune system, and the dangers of the world around him, including his best, but unvaccinated, friend Janie.
• Read it as an ebook for free or order your own copy.

Immunology expertise has combined with beautifully evocative illustrations to create an engaging book for children and their parents. A new children’s book ‘Battle Robots of the Blood’ launches today on Amazon. The book’s story was developed by Professor Adrian Liston, a senior group leader at the Babraham Institute, and visually brought to life by scientist and illustrator Dr Sonia Agüera-Gonzales (Tenmei). 

Speaking about his motivation for developing the book, Prof. Liston said: “I have been working on understanding primary immune deficiencies for more than 10 years now. I have such tremendous respect for these kids – they are tough and unphased by situations that would have adults in tears. Vaccines are such an easy way that we can help. The science is clear: vaccines are the almost perfect medicine. And yet the anti-vax movement keeps on spreading lies. As an immunologist I want to fight back not only with science, but also with stories, to engage children and parents on the benefits of vaccination.”

“Creating the book was a huge amount of fun. I drew inspiration from my own son’s matter-of-fact approach to life. Sonia brought in her own experience as a virologist and her illustrations beautifully bring the emotion of the story to life.”

The book tells the story of Tim, a seven year old who lives a slightly different life to the majority of us. After being introduced to different aspects of Tim’s life, we find out that he has a primary immune deficiency disorder, which means that his immune system can’t protect him against attack from the bacteria and viruses that cause disease. This puts him in in grave danger, especially when exposed to diseases that people could be protected against by vaccination. The story is told in an engaging and light-hearted manner, but still carries the message that vaccination is important for everyone and protects the most vulnerable.

Professor Liston has drawn upon the linguistic skills of his international laboratory to translate the book into nine additional languages, to be released soon. Speaking about the translations, Prof. Liston explained: “The Coronavirus pandemic teaches us that viruses don’t respect borders or linguistic barriers. For vaccination to be truly effective at protecting vulnerable people like Tim, we need to have almost everyone else in the community vaccinated. As scientists we have been historically poor at reaching out to the immigrant component of our communities, and this is reflected by lower vaccination rates. The Babraham Institute wants to start engaging all people in our community, and publishing translations in languages from Hindu and Urdo to Polish and French is a way of engaging us all in the fight against infectious diseases”.

At the end of the book, there are educational materials. For Dr. Agüera-Gonzalez it was important to include science activities. “Most of the science educational books out there cover experiments and concepts for older children, usually above 10 years old. Last year I found a father unsuccessfully searching for activity books in a bookstore with his 5 years old daughter, and I thought then I wanted to fill that gap. I wanted to provide parents and teachers with not only a book, but an experience to learn about immune deficiencies and vaccination at home or in the classroom.”

The book is available to order through Amazon. Proceeds from the book will be used to fund immunology research at the Babraham Institute and to support public engagement activities around immunology and vaccination. As a special deal to help parents deal with the Coronavirus lockdown, we are making the book free to purcahse for the next five days.

Virus Outbreak simulator

The Liston lab has collaborated with Dr Simon Andrews at Babraham Bioinformatics to create an interactive model of virus outbreak spreading. We are asking for feedback on this beta version, try it out and tweet to us at Virus Break.

To play Virus Outbreak, pick a virus (Coronavirus, flu, ebola or measles) and simulate a viral outbreak in the community. The default settings are based on real medical data, but you can modify the viral properties - change the virulence (rate of new infections), lethality, incubation period and symptomatic period. Find out why an ebola virus with the virulence of measles is the worst nightmare of virologists, run simulations of flu vs Coronavirus to see why medical experts are sounding the alarm. 

In Virus Outbreak, you don't only control the virus, you control the response against the virus. Let the virus run free to create "herd immunity", or pick between vaccination, quarantine or social distancing to see what difference they can make. Change your mind on the policy? Hit "stop", go into properties to change the policy, then go back and hit "start" to see how the simulation changes. Take a look at this video where we start social distancing after the outbreak is already established:

New infections grind to a halt. It takes a week for the death rate to drop, because there are asymptomatic people built into the system, but it works! Give it a try here.

Coronavirus treatment implicates the immune system as killer

The first paper in our series on "Coronavirus science simplified". The talented TenMei is taking cutting-edge papers on Coronavirus and boiling them down to an illustrated abstract. Today's paper is"Effective Treatment of Severe COVID-19 Patients with Tocilizumab". You can read the original here, or see the key messages simplified:

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