News

Congratulations to Sandrine and Bilal for their Grants awarded by Stichting Alzheimer Onderzoek (SAO) Foundation. They will study the role of FUS and TDP-43 proteinopathy in the axons in the context of Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) for therapy development.

Sandrine gives a talk at the University of Edinburgh for the School of Biological Sciences Monday Seminar Series. The title is: "From Mechanisms of Neurodegeneration towards Therapy Development in ALS and FTD".

Today two high school students visited our lab to get a flavor on how is life as a scientist. They joined our Friday lab meeting and we ate pizza all together. Funny times!

Diana gives a talk on "Unraveling the contribution of local translation to neuromuscular junction degeneration in FUS-ALS", project that was recently awarded a Development Grant by the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA). She also presents a poster entitled "Spatial characterization of the lower motor neuron circuitry of a FUS-ALS mouse model". Enjoy Orlando!

The ALS Canada society and the Brain Canada foundation grant to Sandrine and her key collaborators Dr. Richard Robitaille (Université de Montréal) and Dr. Danielle Arbour (Université de Montréal) a Discovery Grant to explore new approaches to treat ALS focusing on the neuromuscular junctions.

Today Anastasios Cholevas officially joins our lab! He did an internship with us few months ago as a visiting scholar within the Erasmus program from the University of Crete (Greece), and he decided to continue his scientific adventure in our lab working on the integrated stress response activation in ALS. Good luck Tasos!

Sandrine gives a talk for the International Society for Molecular Neurodegeneration (ISMND), the title is: "From Mechanisms of Neurodegeneration towards Therapy Development in ALS and FTD". Join us in the discussion!

Award received for the development of a therapy targeting FUS in people living with ALS.

Sandrine gave a talk at the III PhasAGE International Conference in Porto (Portugal).

Sandrine is invited guest for the Annual Seminar Series at the CERVO - University of Laval (Canada).

Inspiring workshop at the Banbury Center gathering experts in the field of ALS and Kennedy's disease (SBMA) to brainstorm on common disease features for possible collaborations. Great opportunity to push forward motor neuron disease research!

Anastasios (Tasos) Cholevas joined our group as visiting Master student. He is from the University of Crete (Greece). Welcome!

It is conference time for Britt and Graciana! They participated to the ENCALS meeting 2023 held in beautiful Barcelona. Britt presented a poster on her efforts on elucidating the mechanisms underlying aggregation and spreading of FUS.

Sandrine gave a talk at the Gordon Research Conference on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Related Motor Neuron Diseases - Mechanisms, Modeling and Translational Therapeutics. This year it was organized in Les Diablerets (Switzerland). Time to enjoy science, strengthening already established collaborations and making new ones, surrounded by beautiful nature!

Theo Killian joined our team and the Sifrim Lab (KU Leuven Department of Human Genetics) as PhD student. He will work on the development of new computational techniques for the analysis of spatial multi-omics data in the context of ALS and FTD. Good luck!

The official launch of the "Leuven Center for ALS" (LEUCALS), part of the "Leuven Brain Institute" (LBI) is scheduled on May 11th 2023. No registration fee. One of the Keynote speakers is Prof. Don Cleveland, whose pioneering work together with colleagues led to the recent FDA approval of the first treatment targeting a genetic cause of ALS to treat ALS patients with SOD1 mutations. Sandrine and Tessa will give a talk to offer a glimpse of the research we are doing in our lab. 

A new PhD student joined our team: Günseli Yıldırım from Koç University (Turkey). She will work on TDP-43 aggregation sharing the position with the Switch Lab (VIB-KUL Center for Brain and Disease Research). Good luck!

We are happy to share our latest review on the role of TDP-43 and FUS in the maintenance of motor axons and neuromuscular junctions with a particular attention on local translation. 

Da Cruz Lab participated to the 23rd Annual Packard Center ALS Research Symposium in Baltimore, where Sandrine presented the ongoing work on elucidating how ALS-related mutations contribute to impaired local translation. Great community and great science!

The new year brought us two brand new postdocs: Bilal Khalil and Graciana de Azambuja. Bilal obtained his PhD in Neuroscience from Aix-Marseille University (France) and then moved to Mayo Clinic (USA) for his first postdoc. Graciana recently defended her PhD at the State University of Campinas (Brazil). Welcome guys!

Sandrine gave a talk at the PhasAGE International Conference held in Brussels.

Sandrine presented at the Donders Institute at the Radboud University (Nijmegen, NL).

Neurotechnologies 2022 organized by VIB has started. Check out the webpage: bit.ly/3IUWGDj

Sandrine was part of the scientific organizing committee, check out the interview here: bit.ly/3UEYrYZ 

Diana chaired one session and was one of the conference reporter, check out her impressions: bit.ly/3ZIOv2T

Renata Castro from the University of Coimbra (Portugal) and Alexander Gilis, Master student of Bioscience engineering (KU Leuven), joins our lab to develop their Master theses.

Sandrine is giving a talk at the Armenian Bioinformatics Institute for the OMICS-2022 Seminar.

Today Eline Pieters presented her project to obtain the Master of Science in Biomedical Science, under the supervision of Sandrine and Jens. Thanks to the jury members Dr. Thomas Moens and Dr. Eliana Nachman.

Tessa presented a poster at the European Network to Cure ALS (ENCALS) 2022, held in Edinburgh. She described her PhD work on the role of FUS in axonal homeostasis and degeneration.

Alice Monticelli joined the lab as Visiting Graduate Student. She obtained her Master of Science in Medical Biotechnology at the University of Perugia, Italy.

Viola Ferrari joined the team as a Master Student! She is an Erasmus student from the University of Trento, Italy.

Just before the Christmas break, we had lunch together tasting some Belgian delicacies. Then we challenge ourselves in some good and healthy bowling games! Jens is the man to beat 😊

Sandrine is presenting at the University of Leeds for the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology seminar series.

Sandrine is presenting at the Packard Center investigator meeting.

The first poster of our PhD student Tessa, good job! She talked about her project on axonal translation in mouse primary motor neurons.

Sandrine is presenting at the Second UCL Queen Square Motor Neuron Disease Centre International Symposium.

Excited about our new Lumicks C-Trap system. These "Optical Tweezers" allow us to study single molecule interactions in real time. Our lab is part of the first Center of Excellence on Dynamic Single-Molecule Analysis for Brain and Disease Research in Belgium!

A warm welcome to Burçin Atkaş, Erasmus student visiting from Turkey, and Eline Pieters, volunteer Bachelor’s student from KU Leuven.

Congratulations to Britt Tilkin and Laura Raes for their successful Masters graduation from KU Leuven.

We had a lovely lab dinner, where we also celebrated Tessa's birthday!

Check out our new lab space and that of our colleagues in our Center's new virtual tour. Sandrine made a vlog to give you a quick overview of what we are up to in the lab.

Sandrine gives a talk and Diana presents her first poster at our annual CBD Science day

Welcome to Eline Pieters who will be doing her 6-week lab rotation with us!

Sandrine speaks at the CURE-ND Neurotechnology workshop in Leuven, Belgium

Cristiano will be starting his postdoc with us. He obtained his PhD at the University of Nottingham (UK) and his MSc degree from the University of Camerino (Italy). Welcome Cristiano!

Sandrine is presenting for the Department of Neurosciences at Université de Montréal (Canada).

Stichting Alzheimer Onderzoek (SAO) allocates research funds to Diana Piol. Congratulations!

Sandrine presented at the 6° Journées Recherche sur la SLA et les maladies du neurone moteur, Paris (France).

Jens will join the lab as PhD student, and Stef as lab technician. Welcome both!

The FWO allocates research funds in ALS thanks to a very specific bequest. The research funding has been awarded to Diana Piol. Congratulations!

Diana obtained her PhD at the University of Trento (Italy), then she moved to University of Padova (Italy) where she did her first postdoc. Welcome to the team Diana!

Tessa will join the lab as PhD student. She obtained her Master of Science at KU Leuven (Belgium), brilliantly defending her thesis carried out in Dietmar Thal's laboratory. Welcome Tessa!