news 2020

From stars in another galaxy to a microscopic virus that has taken hold of the entire Earth: in this overview we present the most-read news items about research at KU Leuven in 2020. Bioscience engineers and economists from KU Leuven mapped out how wood could replace petroleum in the chemical industry.

New KU Leuven spin-off combines biomechanical expertise and AI Being able to exercise without pain or injury: it's every athlete's dream as well as the goal of RunEASI, a new spin-off of KU Leuven. RunEASI's wearable measures the impact experienced by runners and provides scientific feedback that can help them avoid and recover from injuries.

In an international study led by KU Leuven and Pennsylvania State University, researchers have identified 203 genes that play a role in the shape of our face. Their study was published. The genetics behind the shape of the human face are difficult to decipher. In 2018, KU Leuven Professor Peter Claes and international colleagues, from Penn State, the University of Pittsburgh and Stanford University School of Medicine, already identified 15 genes that can be connected with specific areas of the face.

Today, virologists at the KU Leuven Rega Institute published the results of their pre-clinical study into a Covid-19 vaccine candidate in  Nature . Their paper builds on a preprint that the team shared on bioRxiv earlier this year, and that  we reported on. The vaccine candidate is based on the yellow fever vaccine and thus also protects against yellow fever.

In a noisy room with many speakers, hearing aids can suppress background noise, but they have difficulties isolating one voice - that of the person you're talking to at a party, for instance.

Researchers at COSIC (KU Leuven/imec) have discovered major security flaws in the keyless entry system of the Tesla Model X. The same researchers previously hacked the Tesla Model S keyless entry system and now demonstrate how the more recent Tesla Model X can be stolen in a few minutes. Tesla has already released an over-the-air software update to mitigate these issues.

This year, Ghent University has no less than 25 researchers with Highly Cited status. This is another fine recognition of the quality of its publications and their scientific impact.

The second edition of UGent'ers will arrive in your mailbox this week. Sneak-preview: Claudia and Wuxia compare Ghent to their hometown, Napels and Guizhou.

New research has shown that the antidepressant sertraline helps to inhibit the growth of cancer cells. The substance acts on a metabolic addiction that allows different types of cancer to grow. This is shown by a study on cell cultures and lab animals performed by various research labs of KU Leuven.

Fishermen working on Lake Tanganyika in eastern Congo experience a lack of safety and want better enforcement of existing regulations. They also report a decline in the lake's fish stocks. These are some of the findings of a large international study led by KU Leuven based on 1018 interviews with stakeholders in the area.

UAntwerp involved in large-scale international research to be published in The Lancet. School-aged children who are given anti-malaria drugs preventively are only half as likely to catch the disease. And that's not all: their risk of anaemia decreases by 15%, and their school performance improves. All this has been demonstrated by international research in which the University of Antwerp was also involved.

The production of ammonia - a very important chemical building block as part of synthetic fertilisers, among other things - is one of the main sources of CO2 emissions. By combining two different technologies, researchers from KU Leuven and the University of Antwerp have now discovered a CO2-free alternative.

UGent and the Portuguese maritime institute CCMAR receive a VLAIO Baekeland grant for research into the sustainable protection of vulnerable coastal areas. Ghent University receives a VLAIO Baekeland grant with support and cooperation from Jan De Nul Group, DEME Group, and the Portuguese marine institute CCMAR for its doctoral study 'PLANT ME'.

Virologists at the Rega Institute have shown that the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine does not limit SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus replication in hamsters. A high dose of the anti-flu drug favipiravir, by contrast, has an antiviral effect in the hamsters. The team published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) .

The Lasers, Optics and Spectroscopies (LOS) technological platform has just received a new spectrometer. Its particularity? It can be used in many fields and allows the study of phenomena with very high spectral resolution and at very high speed - of the order of a microsecond.

In brief: Patrice Cani (UCLouvain) and Claude Knauf (INSERM) have discovered a 'jammer' that blocks communication between the gut and the brain, thus preventing proper regulation of sugar and causing insulin resistance in people with diabetes They also discovered that a lipid produced by our body helps prevent this dysfunction and regulate sugar level, thus mitigating diabetes and intestinal inflammation.

An international consortium led by Isabelle Meyts (KU Leuven) and Stuart Tangye (Garvan Institute) has published its findings on COVID-19 outcomes in individuals with rare inherited immune disorders known as PIDs. Compared to the general population, these patients had similar disease outcomes, but they were more likely to need intensive care and their average age was lower.

River blindness is the root cause, and nodding disease can easily be controlled by administering an anti-parasitic drug and exterminating the blackfly. For several years now, researchers from the University of Antwerp have been collaborating with African scientists to investigate the causes of 'nodding disease', a mysterious form of epilepsy that only affects children on the African continent.

Astronomers present an explanation for the mesmerising shapes of planetary nebulae. The discovery is based on an extraordinary set of observations of stellar winds around ageing stars. Contrary to common consensus, the team found that stellar winds are not spherical but have a shape similar to that of planetary nebulae.

Recent research published by the CMT group in collaboration with Rutgers University uncover a novel way of achieving flat bands in through strain superlattices. An international team led by researchers at Rutgers University in the US has found a way to create "flat? electronic bands - that is, electron states in which there is no relationship between the electrons' energy and velocity - in graphene simply by causing the material to buckle.