Videos

If you get a glioblastoma, you usually only have about 15 months to live.This malignant tumour spreads rapidly through the brain and unfortunately cannot be cured. Yanti De Visser is working on a personalised treatment to already slow down the brain tumour - with success. "The first results show that our approach has the potential to extend patients' lives by years, rather than months," she says.

Every 3 minutes, a woman dies of ovarian cancer somewhere in the world. "Ovarian cancer is very sneaky. Most of the patients respond positively to the therapies initially provided to them, but eventually, the cancer comes back and is much more aggressive. As a result one in two ovarian cancer patients die within 5 years after diagnosis." But what if we were able to treat ovarian cancer with a new therapy using our cells?

What if there might be a way to tackle the side effects of cancer treatments, such as fatigue, chronic pain and anxiety, even before the treatment begins? Kenza Mostaqim (VUB) introduces you to 'prehabilitation'.

Why do people get cancer, arthritis, or Alzheimer's? Essentially because a protein key in our body does not fit in its respective lock. This is why Alvaro Martin is looking at removing defective keys and designing new protein keys. Keys that fit and can open the necessary locks, so that for example, our immune cells target and kill cancerous cells. "Protein design can be the key to unlocking a future without diseases."

Thanks to advanced proton therapy, doctors can precisely start irradiating brain tumours. Unfortunately, they do not yet dare to use this technique on tumours in the belly. Why? Because it's a bit like playing darts with a blindfold, while you have to hit a moving target, as Sophie Heymans explains in this video. She tells you about the technique she is working on to help doctors face this challenge.

Up to 25% of the cells present in lung cancer tumours are currently ignored. As such, we don't know what the role of these so-called B cells is. "It is crucial to figure that out because we cannot efficiently fight something we do not fully understand," says Pauline Bardet (VUB - VIB - FWO).

In her PhD, she wants to get to the bottom of those B cells and thus find out whether those cells are "good guys" or "bad guys".

Once diagnosed with glioblastoma, a highly aggressive brain cancer, a patient has on average only 15 months to live. "This terrible statistic shows that we urgently need new treatment options," says Myrthe Mampay (VUB - FWO). In her research, she is looking for one such new treatment based on immunotherapy, in which she wants to use patient stem cells to make macrophages that attack the tumour.

When removing a kidney tumor, a surgeon has just 20 minutes to do the job. During the operation, the surgeon has to cut off the blood supply to the kidney to avoid a true blood bath. But if the kidney is without blood for too long, too much of it will die off, causing the kidney to malfunction. Using mathematical models, Saar Vermijs aims to help surgeons in their race against the clock...

Today, we can treat cancer better than ever. Yet some cancer types remain very difficult to fight. Such is the case of glioblastoma, a highly aggressive brain cancer in which only 7 in 100 patients are still alive five years after diagnosis. Hoping to help glioblastoma get small, Joke Deschildre doctored a sophisticated strategy to attack cancer cells.

In the last decade, wildfires peaked at record numbers in different countries across the world. These fires destroy houses and burn down forests, but they also have other important 'unseen' effects. "Smoke from wildfires leads to high air pollution, which is associated with short and long-term risks, such as respiratory and cardiac diseases", as Leonidas Leiva explains. He's working on new materials to recognize, capture and neutralize these contaminants.

Over the past five years, solid progress has been made in the fight against cancer, but unfortunately, that does not apply to pancreatic cancer. So what makes this cancer so hard to beat? Olaya Lara (VUB) explains this by comparing it to a football match. She also tells you what tactics she figures out to sideline xCT, the Lionel Messi in the pancreatic cancer team. 

The fight against breast cancer does not stop with overcoming cancer. 1 in 3 women continue to experience pain symptoms even during a harmless activity such as cycling. Physiotherapist Eva Roose (VUB) wants to help these breast cancer survivors reset their pain alarms.