News

VIB is very grateful to the Alzheimer Research Foundation (Stichting Alzheimer Onderzoek) for the funding the researchers received, which helps them in their quest for cures. The ​Alzheimer Research Foundation (Stichting Alzheimer Onderzoek) has been fighting Alzheimer's disease for years and is working on a future without dementia. 

Whoever assumes that VIB core facilities only provide executive services is greatly mistaken. Today, their focus lies on helping biologists expand their knowledge and use state-of-the-art technologies. This kind of collaboration is the key to achieving scientific breakthroughs.

If you ask Saskia Lippens (VIB Bioimaging Core, Ghent), Sebastian Munck (VIB Bioimaging Core, Leuven), Alexander Botzki (VIB BioInformatics Core) and Gert Van Isterdael (VIB Flow Core, Ghent), the mission of the VIB core facilities is to provide technological support to the scientific community – in the broadest sense possible. We gave them the floor to elaborate on how this works in practice.

​Two newly developed methods will help researchers to study the 3D structure of complex surfaces and individual neurons better than ever before. Sebastian Munck and Natalia Gunko report new imaging protocols that will advance neuroscience and (bio)imaging in general.

A team of scientists from VIB and KU Leuven has developed a machine learning algorithm that identifies children with juvenile arthritis with almost 90% accuracy from a simple blood test. The new findings pave the way for the use of machine learning to improve diagnosis and to predict which juvenile arthritis patients may respond best to different treatment options. The work was led by Professor Adrian Liston, from VIB and KU Leuven in Leuven, Belgium and the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, UK.

Each year, the EU launches calls for postdoc research fellowships through the Marie Sklodowksa-Curie Actions. Fellowships provided through these actions support researchers regardless of age and nationality. Researchers working across all disciplines are eligible for funding. The prestigious two-year funding of Marie Curie fellowships attracts an enormous number of applications. Consequently, these fellowships are very competitive with a typical success rate of around 12%. VIB, however, manages to maintain a success rate of around 27%. The standing of these fellowships also provides an excellent springboard for the launch of an outstanding research career.