Science & Health
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Health News
January 16, 2018
Health
Aggressive leukaemia
The Belgian federal government supports fundamental research by conferring Quinquennial Awards to two Belgian researchers. This year, the francophone winner was Stefan Constantinescu, a University...
January 09, 2018
Health
Promoting appropriate prescriptions for the elderly
Many people aged 75 or older, including those in nursing and care homes and hospitals, receive inappropriate treatment. This is the research subject of Prof. Anne Spinewine, who on 12 December...
December 19, 2017
Health
A new molecule for preventing metastasis
Prof. Pierre Sonveaux and his team at the UCL Institute of Experimental and Clinical Research (IREC) identified a new molecule that can prevent metastasis. Three years ago, he had confirmed a...
December 19, 2017
Health
Weakening the defences of bacteria
Antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains are multiplying. To forestall a serious public health problem, new molecules must be developed. At the de Duve Institute, Jean-François Collet and his team...
October 19, 2017
Health
Chronic pain: a new path toward treatment?
Sufferers of chronic pain in a limb perceive the space around the limb less accurately, according to a study by Lieve Filbrich and Valéry Legrain, researchers at the UCL Institute of Neuroscience....
July 11, 2017
Antibiotics and cystic fibrosis: a good idea?
UCL researchers have made the troubling discovery that macrolides, the antibiotics frequently prescribed to sufferers of cystic fibrosis, foster resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa....
August 29, 2017
Inside the brain of the profoundly deaf
The brain is divided into areas, each of which processes specific information. If a certain type of information is missing – such as sounds – the brain reorganises itself... but not at random!...
August 04, 2017
Face grafting: a fast-evolving field at UCL
For over ten years, facial reconstruction has been a central area of interest for UCL researchers. Their objective is to develop innovative techniques to adapt as closely as possible to the...
June 22, 2017
A better understanding of melanoma’s mechanisms
Anabelle Decottignies’s team just discovered that melanoma doesn’t develop like most cancers, making it more difficult to treat.
For more than 15 years, Anabelle Decottignies, FNRS Research...
May 18, 2017
The missing antioxidant
A team of UCL researchers recently discovered the function of Nit1, a metabolic repair enzyme. A lack of it could cause a metabolic disorder.
Our cells use oxygen to burn sugars and fat in...
June 06, 2017
Using PET scans to improve Hodgkin’s lymphoma treatment
Using a PET scan to analyse a tumour leads to better treatment of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the white blood cells known as lymphocytes. The technique has been studied and validated by the...
May 11, 2017
Antibiotics: What are the effects on baby mice?
Does being treated with antibiotics early in life have an impact in adulthood? That’s the question Sophie Leclercq tried to answer by observing the behaviour of mice exposed in utero to...
February 22, 2017
More accurate MRIs: coming soon?
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), already an very effective technology, could soon become even more precise. The MCube H2020 project is working toward more accurate diagnoses.
We tend to forget...
February 10, 2017
Myocardial infarction: how to prevent a second heart attack
One-quarter of the 10,000 heart attacks per year in Belgium are followed by a second one. That figure drove the Fondation Louvain (Louvain Foundation) to launch the Cardio fundraising campaign for...
February 10, 2017
IT Targets: advancing cancer immunotherapy
Over the past five years all hopes for combatting cancer have turned to immunotherapy. The IT Targets project is doing its part by targeting GPCR proteins.
On paper immunotherapy is...
When bacteria fight back
Some bacteria that cause disease in humans are becoming more resistant to antobiotics—so resistant that some experts see ‘antibiotic resistant’ infections as tomorrow’s plague. Fortunately,...
January 17, 2017
Safer restoration of female fertility after cancer: the...
Cancer treatment can save your life; it can also make you infertile. UCL pioneered post-cancer female fertility restoration by freezing ovarian tissue prior to treatment and subsequently...
November 10, 2016
Towards a treatment for venous malformation?
Angiomas, vascular malformations that can provoke numerous symptoms, afflict approximately 6,000 people in Belgium. For 20 years, Dr Laurence Boon, coordinator of the Centre for Vascular Anomalies...
June 28, 2016
Adolescent depression: Can mindfulness prevent it?
Adolescents are of course not immune to feeling blue or even depressed. Researchers are betting on mindfulness as a means of prevention, especially at UCL, a pioneer of child mindfulness. Prof....
May 13, 2016
Bacterial biofilms under the microscope
Many infections contracted in hospital are linked to the formation of biofilms. How do these sticky layers of bacteria form on the surface of some medical devices? Can we counteract them? At UCL,...
May 13, 2016
Health and undocumented immigrants: a social conundrum
Personal opinions and politics aside, the presence in Belgium of undocumented migrants raises the delicate question of their access to health care. Researchers at the UCL Institute of Health and...
April 25, 2016
MammoNote: facilitating diagnosis of breast cancer
Breast cancer afflicts one in eight Belgian women. Early detection increases the chance of survival, thus screening is recommended. The Mammotest screening programme was introduced in Belgium and...
April 25, 2016
A treatment for heart failure?
One in five people suffer from heart failure: the heart fails to pump blood correctly. This eventually leads to death, but UCL researchers and doctors may have found a treatment.
The heart is a...
April 20, 2016
What happens in the mind of an anxiety sufferer?
In Belgium, between 7 and 10% of the population suffers from anxiety disorder (AD). What exactly goes on in their minds?
There are different types of AD: phobias, OCDs, generalised...
April 07, 2016
Immunotherapy: arming the body against cancer
Immunotherapy is one of the most promising treatments for certain cancers. At UCL, several research teams are studying our immune mechanisms to find new treatments.
Every day our bodies...
January 05, 2016
Examining molecular mechanisms to target treatments more...
A cell’s surface is made of a lipid membrane that contains many receptors. They can send signals from outside to the cell interior, sometimes to adverse effect, such as inflammation. Numerous...
January 24, 2017
Robots that help doctors
Medical robotics and related technologies are booming. At UCL, engineers and doctors are working together to meet the technical, human, ethical and financial challenges of future medical practice....
January 24, 2017
Disasters: robots to the rescue
Imagine an earthquake or nuclear accident disaster area where it’s impossible to send in rescuers without putting their lives at risk. At UCL, Nicolas Van der Noot is looking to robots to do the...
January 24, 2017
From the lab to the hospital: medical robotics, a team...
Exoskeletons, microsurgery robots, robotic prostheses—robotics and the medical sector have never complemented each other so well. In 2014, UCL created Louvain Bionics, a centre of expertise unique...
December 05, 2016
Actualités
When bacteria fight back
Some bacteria that cause disease in humans are becoming more resistant to antobiotics—so resistant that some experts see ‘antibiotic resistant’ infections as tomorrow’s plague. Fortunately,...
August 11, 2016
How emotional intelligence can make you healthier
Being able to identify, understand, express, manage and use our emotions helps us in so many facets of our lives. According to a recent UCL study, emotional intelligence (EI) can even improve your...
March 22, 2017
Nisha Limaye awarded the Prix Lambertine Lacroix for...
Nisha Limaye’s work on the signalling pathway involved in 80% of venous malformation cases not only won her a prize but has created new treatment possibilities.
Every four years the Prix...
January 31, 2017
Obesity and bacteria: In gut we trust
Humanity faces an unprecedented epidemic of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Intestinal bacteria and their dialogue with the immune system have something to do with it.
We have...
June 28, 2016
Better big data analysis for better epidemic management
Using big data to precisely and easily predict an epidemic’s course or a virus’s spread—that’s the seemingly incredible goal of Jean-Charles Delvenne, a researcher at the Mathematical Engineering...
April 27, 2016
IgGreen, for the most ethical pharmacological proteins
Using plant cells to produce diagnostic and pharmacological proteins—that’s the challenge taken up by the researchers at IgGreen, a funding recipient of UCL’s ‘First Spin-off’ programme. IgGreen’s...
April 25, 2016
Senegal: using big data to anticipate food shortages
Four young researchers of the Environmetrics and Geomatics Laboratory, led by Prof. Pierre Defourny of the UCL Earth and Life Institute, have been recognised by the Massachusetts Institute of...
April 04, 2017
What controls body movement?
Gaining a thorough understanding of the mechanisms that initiate and inhibit body movements can lead to new treatments for diseases that disrupt them, such as Parkinson’s disease and Tourette...
April 07, 2017
Pomegranate for muscle loss?
UCL researchers have discovered that urolithin B, a substance derived from pomegranate peel, slows the loss of muscle mass. The discovery could lead to a new treatment.
Muscle is the most...
April 11, 2017
An anti-adhesive treatment to fight staphylococcus aureus
A team led by Professor Yves Dufrêne of UCL’s Institute of Life Sciences, in collaboration with Trinity College Dublin, recently discovered a molecule that can prevent a huge problem for hospitals...
March 23, 2017
Tuberculosis: Where do we stand?
In Belgium, 1,000 cases of tuberculosis are reported each year. On the occasion of World TB Day, 24 March, we ask where UCL tuberculosis research stands.
Tuberculosis is far from disappearing....
January 31, 2017
Bacteria and bleach: all-out war
UCL de Duve Institute researchers discovered that bacteria have a defence against our immune system’s bleach. Could this lead to new antibiotics?
To defend itself against the many attacks to...
January 31, 2017
Using electricity to treat the effects of CVA
Most people who survive a cerebrovascular accident (CVA) suffer impaired motor skills. UCL researchers may have found a way to boost their ability to relearn them.
Like all our organs,...
March 22, 2018
Health
Preventing cardiac hypertrophy
UCL researchers have discovered a new mechanism at work in cardiac hypertrophy, which could pave the way to a more targeted treatment of this potentially harmful condition.
The least that can...
March 22, 2018
Health
The secret weapons of S. salivarius
Streptococcus salivarius is a bacterium that lives peacefully in our digestive tract. A team of researchers at UCL has highlighted the communication and attack mechanisms that allow it to fight...