Videos

Every three seconds, someone in the world is diagnosed with dementia. But what causes it? Dementia can be caused by diseases such as Alzheimer's & Parkinson's. The only way to find out the exact cause is by studying the brain tissue of a patient after his death 🧠  Yaël Hirschberg hopes to develop a method of identifying this earlier so that a patient can receive targeted care even before the first symptoms of dementia appear. Watch her explain how  

Millions of people worldwide suffer from 'invisible' diseases such as chronic widespread pain and chronic fatigue syndrome, which makes patients feel ill for days or even weeks after a small effort, such as washing their hair. Jolien Hendrix (VUB - KU Leuven) tries to understand these diseases by looking at epigenetics. Epi what?! Well, you can see this as DNA paperclips as Jolien explains vividly in this video!

Radiation can save the lives of people with head and neck cancer. Unfortunately, many patients develop swallowing disorders as a result of the treatment, which makes it impossible for them to eat solid food. Leen Van den Steen (UAntwerpen - UZA) wants to help them. How? With tongue strength training.

Heart failure patients have a lot of trouble with physical exertion. They can barely even walk the dog. To improve their condition, they can follow training programs in the hospital. But more than half of the patients hardly benefit from them. Cardiologist in training Isabel Witvrouwen (UAntwerpen - University Hospital Antwerp) is trying to find out why.

In Belgium and the Netherlands, more than 1,000 people suffer from DFNA9, a condition that causes hereditary hearing loss and balance disorders. DFNA9 is due to an error in the DNA of the ear. Dorien Verdoodt (UAntwerp) is conducting research into a new therapy based on the revolutionary Crispr genetic technique. In this way, she hopes to be able to cure hereditary hearing loss in the future with a syringe in the ear.

Imagine constantly hearing a ringing bell, a jackhammer, or that awful beep of the old television test screen in your head. That's what people with tinnitus experience. At the UZA they want to treat people with tinnitus better. For too long the cause was sought in the ear, without looking at the crucial motor that controls all our perceptions: the brain. Emilie Cardon (UAntwerpen) explains why we have to look for tinnitus there.

Family parties are a nightmare for those who wear hearing aids. With all those people talking at the same time, they find it difficult to hold a conversation. Engineer Simon Geirnaert is working on a solution. With his brain-controlled hearing aids, he also wants to help people with a hearing aid to communicate with each other.

Do you remember baby Pia? She suffered from the rare muscle disease AMS and the medicine to save her cost a whopping €1.9 million. If you were the Minister of Health, would you pay for Pia's medicine? Even if that meant there was no budget left for another medicine that might save 100 people?

During a stroke, every second counts to save as many brain cells as possible. Intervention is only possible within a narrow time window of a few hours because late treatment can lead to serious complications. Is there nothing more we can do for these 'late' patients? There is, says neurologist trainee Lauranne Scheldeman!

"Each person is unique. So why do we still treat every woman with ovarian cancer the same way?" Liselore Loverix (KU Leuven - FWO) examines patient by patient and looks for errors in the DNA of their tumour cells. In this way, before treatment starts, she identifies which patient would benefit from a new, targeted therapy based on cancer drugs.

Together you are always stronger. Unfortunately, this also applies to some microbes, which can conspire to make us seriously ill. Microbiologist Katrien Van Dyck is investigating such a conspiracy between a fungus and a microbe that work together to cause a serious infection. By studying the interaction between the two, she hopes to find out how we can break their alliance.

Thanks to new radiotherapy techniques, more and more patients with head and neck cancer are surviving. But for 70% of them, this radiation causes chronic swallowing problems, making it difficult to eat and drink. Hanne Massonet hopes to help them enjoy food and drink again by training their tongue, mouth, and throat muscles.