Coordinator: Bart Lambrecht
Projectmanager: Ruth van Laere
Partners: Mathieu Bertrand, Rudi Beyaert, Michael Drennan, Dirk Elewaut, Sarah Gerlo, Sophie Janssens,Ruth van Laere, Bart Lambrecht, Geert van Loo, Steven Staelens, Jan Tavernier, Peter Vandenabeele, Christian Vanhove
Associated partners: Brusselle, Guy, Nico Callewaert, Kris Gevaert, Hamida Hammad, Georges Leclercq, Claude Libert, Martine De Vos
Partners
Mathieu Bertrand
Mathieu JM Bertrand graduated from the University of Louvain (UCL) in 1999, with a degree in Agronomy and Bio-engineering Sciences (ingénieur chimiste et des bio-industries). He obtained a PhD in Biomedical Sciences in 2005 in the lab of Prof. De Backer, at the Brussel’s Branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (1999-2001) and at the University of Namur (2001-2005). He did a first postdoc under the mentorship of Prof. Barker at the Montreal Neurological Institute of McGill University (2005-2009) and a second one in the lab of Prof. Vandenabeele at the VIB/Ghent university (2009-2011). Mathieu became Professor in the rank of Lecturer (Tenure Track) in the Department of Biomedical Molecular Biology in Ghent University’s Faculty of Sciences in February 2011. His main research interest consists in the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms of signal transduction in cell death, cancer and innate immunity/inflammation, and particularly focuses on the role of non-degradative ubiquitination.
Rudi Beyaert
Rudi Beyaert is Professor in Molecular Biology at Ghent University, VIB group leader and Associate Director of the Department of Biomedical Molecular Biology. He is leading the Unit of Molecular Signal Transduction in Inflammation, currently consisting of more than 20 researchers which integrate a variety of in vitro biochemical and molecular approaches with in vivo mouse gene targeting and mouse models of human disease. The goal of his research is to understand the molecular mechanisms that control inflammation and immunity, with special emphasis on NF-kB signaling and its role in the pathogenesis of inflammatory diseases and cancer. He published over 150 papers in peer reviewed journals.
URL: www.vib.be
URL Unit: www.dmbr.ugent.be
Michael Drennan
Michael B. Drennan is Professor of Immunology in the Department of Rheumatology at Ghent University. He is currently setting up a group which aims to investigate the relationship between metabolic stress and lymphocyte biology. This relationship will be modelled at a developmental level with the intention of applying it to inflammatory and autoimmune disease in general.
URL: UGent
Dirk Elewaut
Dirk Elewaut is a full professor of rheumatology and immunology and head of the Laboratory for Molecular Immunology and Inflammation in the Department of Rheumatology at Ghent University Hospital. He obtained his MD at Ghent University in 1991 and his PhD in 1997 at the same institution. Following postdoctoral research at the University of California San Diego and the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology he joined the faculty of the Department of Rheumatology at Ghent University Hospital in 2001, a Center of Excellence of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR). He is also the Director of the Ghent University Hospital Center of Excellence the Federation of Clinical Immunological Societies (FOCIS). He has published more than 120 scientific publications, often in high impact journals and is heading a team of 15 researchers. He is also an Associate Editor of Rheumatology and a member of the editorial board of Arthritis Rheumatism, Arthritis Research and Therapy and International Journal of Rheumatology. His research interests are centered around translational aspects of immune regulation to combat inflammatory arthritis and associated joint damage.
Sarah Gerlo
Sarah Gerlo obtained a PhD in Medical Sciences in 2005 at the Lab of Neuroendocrine Immune Interactions of the Free University of Brussels (VUB), with a study on the regulation of prolactin expression in leukocytes. She then moved to Ghent University, where she worked as an FWO postdoctoral fellow in the Lab of Eukaryotic Gene Expression and Signal Transduction, studying molecular crosstalk between GPCR-mediated signals and the proinflammatory NF-κB cascade. Sarah was appointed tenure track Professor in Molecular Biology at the Cytokine Receptor Lab (CRL) of the UGent-VIB Department of Medical Protein Research, where she is currently establishing a group which will investigate the connection between inflammation and ER stress. Building on the unique expertise of the CRL in the study of protein-protein interactions, the primary goal of this new research unit will be to identify novel components of the UPRosome and to explore their biological function. Special attention will be dedicated to the connection between ER stress and inflammation in metabolic disease and to the role of cytokines as modulators of the unfolded protein response.
URL: www.crl-mappit.be
Sophie Janssens
Sophie Janssens obtained her PhD degree in 2003 at the University of Ghent in Prof. Beyaert's lab and then moved to Lausanne for a postdoc in Prof. Tschopp's lab. She has a major interest in how cells respond to stress (infection, DNA damage, neurodegeneration, ER stress...) and how they coordinate an appropriate immune response upon stress, which helps them to restore homeostasis. She was recently appointed as Professor Immunology in the Laboratory of Immunoregulation and Mucosal Immunology at Ghent University, where she will coordinate an independent research line on the role of ER stress in dendritic cells (DC) and inflammatory lung diseases.
Ruth Van Laere
I’ve graduated 9 years ago as a Bachelor Press & Communication, option journalism. After my studies I’ve started working for one year as a freelance journalist for magazines.
But I was looking for a more steady job and applied for a position at Ghent University in a centre for children with a developmental disorder (COS). Together with three other colleagues, we were running the administrative department of the centre.
Finally, in October 2007, I’ve started working as personal assistant of Prof. Bart Lambrecht, GROUP-ID coordinator. My job as projectmanager is to support the consortium in an administrative context.
Bart Lambrecht
Bart N. Lambrecht obtained the MD/PhD degree at the University of Ghent, Belgium in 1993 and 1999. After obtaining the MD/PhD degree under the mentorship of Prof. Romain Pauwels, he moved to The Netherlands where he trained in Pulmonary Medicine. He became Professor of Pulmonary Medicine in 2005, holding a special chair in Immunopathology of the Lung at the pulmonary research program of Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. After ten years in The Netherlands, he moved back to Belgium and was appointed Professor of Pulmonary Medicine at Ghent University, and is currently heading a group of 24 scientists dealing with the immunopathology of asthma and immunotherapy of cancer.
He is the author of over 100 papers dealing with the use of mouse models to study the pathogenesis of asthma and cancer related immunosuppression.
Geert van Loo
Geert van Loo is Professor in the Department of Molecular Biomedical Research at Ghent University and VIB. His research concerns the study of the molecular mechanisms involving NF-B and ER stress in inflammatory autoimmune pathology. For this, his group uses mice genetically defective in major NF-B- and UPR-regulatory genes, and subject them to well-established mouse disease models.
URL: www.vib.be
Steven Staelens
Prof. dr. Steven Staelens: Steven Staelens (BScE, MScE, PhD) was born in Ostend, Belgium and graduated with the greatest distinction as a Physics Engineer from Ghent University, Belgium in 2001. Later on that year he joined the Medical Image and Signal Processing (MEDISIP) research group of the Faculty of Engineering at the same university. His research aimed at simulating nuclear medicine scanners using Monte Carlo techniques and he obtained his doctoral degree in applied sciences end of 2004. Since then Steven Staelens was appointed in the same research group as a fulltime postdoctoral researcher. In 2005-2006 he was a visiting fellow in the small animal imaging lab of Freek Beekman in Utrecht, the Netherlands. When returning with MEDISIP end of 2006 he was mainly working on Monte Carlo techniques in system design and quantitative image reconstruction for SPECT.
Jan Tavernier
Jan Tavernier obtained his Ph.D. degree in 1984 on the cloning and characterisation of interferon and interleukin genes. After an extended stay in Biogen and later in Roche, he returned in 1996 to Academia at the VIB Department of Medical Protein Research, Ghent University. He founded the Cytokine Receptor Laboratory that currently consists of 30 researchers. Based on insights in cytokine receptor activation, he developed the mammalian MAPPIT and KISS two-hybrid technologies. Detailed information can be found at www.mappit.be.
Jan Tavernier published more than 175 refereed manuscripts since 1980, 20 of which are being cited over 100 times. He also holds 15 patent applications. His main areas of expertise are cytokine receptor activation and signal transduction, with emphasis on pathways involved in innate immunity, and the analysis of protein-protein interactions including interactome mapping, pathway walking and molecular description of inter-domain interactions.
URL: www.crl-mappit.be
Peter Vandenabeele
Peter Vandenabeele is full professor in Molecular Biology at in the university Department for Biomedical Molecular Biology at the Ghent University, group leader in the VIB Department for Molecular Biomedical Research (DMBR), and president of the Biochemistry and Biotechnology bachelor and master program in the Faculty of Sciences (about 320 students enrolled). He is leading the VIB Unit of Molecular Signalling in Cell Death, currently consisting of almost 30 researchers and technicians divided in 3 subgroups. A subgroup headed by Prof. Wim Declercq is focusing on mechanisms of cell death and inflammation in the skin, and a subgroup is being built up headed by Prof. Mathieu Bertrand investigating molecular mechanisms of cell death and inflammation associated with ER stress. The Vandenabeele subgroup integrates basic molecular, proteomic, cellular and intercellular findings into in vivo disease models to understand and target molecular mechanisms of cell death and their contribution to inflammatory diseases and cancer. Special emphasis is put on the role of RIP kinases and caspases, and their substrates in these processes. Peter Vandenabeele contributed since 1985 to more than 230 papers in peer reviewed journals which have been cited over 60 times on average.
Christian Vanhove
Christian Vanhove graduated as a Biomedical and Clinical Engineer from Brussels University in 1990. In the same year he joined the Biomedical and Clinical Engineering course at the Patras University (Greece) as an Erasmus student. From 1991 until 1996, he worked as a Medical Physicist at the Nuclear Medicine department of the Sint-Elisabeth hospital in Zottegem, where he was doing research and developments for the industry in a clinical environment. Research and developments were focused on all aspects of medical image processing, including image reconstruction, image fusion and image quantification. In 1996, he moved to the Nuclear Medicine department of the Brussels University Hospital. As a Medical Physicist Expert he continued his research in the field of medical image processing and obtained his doctoral degree in medical science in 2004. In 2005, he was one of the initiators of the molecular imaging lab at the Brussels University. From 2005 until the beginning of 2011, Christian Vanhove worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the field of molecular imaging at the same university. Since February 2011, he joined the Medical Image and Signal Processing (MEDISIP) research group of the Faculty of Engineering at the Ghent University, where he is responsible for the Innovative Flemish in-vivo Imaging Technology (INFITY) small animal lab.
Associated Partners
Kris Gevaert
Ghent University, Belgium
Prof. Kris Gevaert, PhD
Department of Biochemistry
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences and
Department of Medical Protein Research
Flanders Institute for Biotechnology
A. Baertsoenkaai 3, B-9000 Gent, BELGIUM
e-mail:
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E-Mail:
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Dr. Gevaert obtained his PhD in Biotechnology in 2000 at Ghent University (Belgium). He was a post-doctoral fellow with the Fund for Scientific Research (Flanders, Belgium) until 2006 and got appointed Professor in the rank of lecturer in Functional Proteomics at Ghent University in 2004. Since 2005 he heads the Functional Proteomics group of the VIB Department of Medical Protein Research and also the VIB Proteomics Expertise Centre. In 2010 he got appointed Full Professor at Ghent University and currently is an acting director of the VIB Department of Medical Protein Research. Together with Joël Vandekerckhove he has introduced the suite of COFRADIC proteomics technologies which his group applies to the deep analysis of protein modifications, including protein processing by proteases. His group published over 130 papers and several book chapters on the development and applications of proteomics techniques in several areas of biomedical and life sciences research.
Claude Libert
Claude Libert obtained his PhD in Molecular Biology in 1993 in the lab of Walter Fiers. After a postdoc in the IRBM in Rome, Italy, he became a group leader with VIB in 1997 and a professor at Ghent University in 2003. His main interest is the elucidation of molecular mechanism of complex acute inflammatory reactions, such as sepsis, and the identification of new players. His approach is a mouse molecular genetic approach and his aim is to define novel therapeutic interventions. Currently, his group consists of 14 researchers.
URL: dmbr.ugent.be
Martine De Vos
Martine De Vos is full Professor Gastroenterology at University of Ghent and Director of the Clinical department of Gastroenterology at the University Hospital . She obtained her MD degree at the University of Ghent in 1977, her Doctor degree in Biomedial Sciences in 1986 and her PhD degree in 1993 at the same institution . She published more than 190 scientific publications.
She received the Glaxo Price in 1990 with a manuscript about the relationship between gut and joint inflammation and the AstraZeneca/ Biotherabel price in 2002 with a study about immunobiologic and genetic factors involved in the relationship between gut and articular symptoms in Crohn’s disease.
She started up a translational research laboratorium. The interest of her research group is mainly directed on the gene expression in inflammatory bowel disease and the identification of targets for therapeutic intervention in gut inflammation predominantly related to articular inflammation.