Are all those pills really needed as the end approaches?
Up to 91 pills a week. That's how many medicines people take at the end of their lives. Kristel Paque is investigating whether all these pills are really necessary.
Did you know that 1 in 100 people who develop cancer are under 18 years of age? In order to diagnose cancer, a surgical biopsy is often required. But Ruben Van Paemel and his colleagues want to change this. They want to detect cancer in children by taking a simple blood sample.
Did you know that cancer researchers draw inspiration from applications such as Amazon, Facebook and even Tinder? Armed with a supercomputer, Celine Everaert, like these applications, processes large amounts of data. Not to sell books or to help people get on a date, but to offer cancer patients personalised treatments.
Did you know that breast cancer is the second most common cancer for women, affecting 1.7 million women worldwide? In her research Ovia Margaret Thirukkumaran is trying to decipher how cancer cells communicate and develop resistance against drugs in so called HER 2 breast cancer, a very aggressive form of breast cancer.
Organ transplants: life-saving, yet sometimes lethal
While an organ transplant will often save the life of a patient, it also leads to a higher risk of developing cancer. Nena Testelmans (KU Leuven) is determined to help unravel why transplants might induce cancer in patients.
In Belgium, every year more than 25,000 people return to work after cancer treatment. Yet there are many employers who do not know how to react in such a situation. Elise Pattyn (Arteveldehogeschool) and her colleagues are working on tools to make the return to work smoother.
During cancer treatments medicines sometimes tend to remain in the kidneys of patients, which can be a problem because they can cause damage to healthy cells there. Maxine Crauwels is carrying out research to help guide the medication to the exit.
Liver cancer: how do we get the medicines to the tumor?
As if developing a cancer drug is not difficult enough, you still have to successfully get that medicine to the tumor. Tim Bomberna (Ghent University) explains how computer simulations show us the way.
Jessica Bridoux, researcher at the University of Brussels (VUB), is developing a diagnostic tool to track tumourcells that are trying to hide from our immune system.
Imagine having to visit the toilet 30 times a day for 'number two'. That's not possible, right? Unfortunately, it's the reality for a lot of patients with rectal cancer who've had rectal surgery. Anne Asnong tries to help these people so that they no longer have to spend their life 'chained' to the toilet seat. 🚽
With the current corona pandemic, viruses are seen as more dangerous than ever. But did you know that some viruses can help us fight cancer? Jolien De Munck is studying the potential of these so-called 'oncolytic viruses'.