15 Apr GUTVIBRATIONS Gathering in Leuven
Every year, since the beginning of the project, members of our consortium would gather in person to discuss the progress that has been achieved. While we chose Cambridge as our destination last year, this year, we gathered in Leuven, a picturesque city in Belgium. On Thursday, 11th of April 2024, we gathered at KU Leuven to discuss the progress made within work packages 3 to 10.
Recap of the Periodic Review Meeting
This year’s meeting was important to us for two particular reasons. Last month, we concluded Work Packages 3 (DEFEND) & 4 (SPREAD), which means that we have successfully developed a gut epithelial-immune cell co-culture model and established a human BBB model. With the completion of Work Packages 3 & 4, we will be able to demonstrate that the complex models developed within these work packages can provide an optimized functional platform for modelling infectious diseases of the gut and the brain.
Additionally, while we usually present progress to internal members of the consortium, this year we had three special guests joining us. Our EU Project Officer, Razvan Anistoroaei, and two external experts, Klaus Mathwig and Peter Kamp Busk, attended our meeting to provide feedback and suggestions for the work that we have done within the project.
Touring the laboratories of KU Leuven
Following the tradition of our two-day meeting, the second day of our gathering was dedicated to lectures from external experts in the field of organoid technology. We started the day with a keynote presentation by Prof. Dr. Hugo Vankelecom on his research on endometrium organoids, which was followed by a tour of the BSL-3 laboratories* in KU Leuven by Winston Chu. Finally, to close the day, Prof. Dr. Johan Neyts gave a keynote presentation on the Virus Bank Platform.
*BSL–3 laboratories are special laboratories that are used to study infectious agents or toxins that may be transmitted through the air and cause potentially lethal infections.
What’s next for GUTVIBRATIONS?
With the completion of Work Packages 3 & 4, we can finally proceed to the next phase of the project. This phase will include infection of our gut mucosa model and the BBB-brain model, antiviral testing against viruses that interact with the gut-brain axis, and the assembly of the complex human gut-brain axis OoC.
Follow us on LinkedIn, @GUTVIBRATIONS for more updates on our project and members.