Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Laarbeeklaan, 103
B-1090 Brussels
Belgium

Homepage

Team Leader

Prof. Luc Bouwens Vrije Universiteit Brussel  Phone: +32 2 477 4457  Fax: +32 2 477 4405  Contact

Project Staff

Mr. Nick Devoogdt Phone: +32 2 6291978  Fax: +32 2 6291981  Contact

Mr. Tony Lahoutte Phone: +32 2 4775020  Fax: +32 2 4775017  Contact

Ms. Iris Mathijs Research assistant  Contact

Ms. Evelien De Waele Research assistant  Contact

Institute Presentation

The Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) is a University counting more than 9,000 students distributed over all disciplines. Our research department is located at the medical campus that harbours a medical school (Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy) and a university hospital (UZ-Brussel). The latter counts 700 beds and admits each year more than 25,000 patients and treats 400,000 outpatients.
Our research department is affiliated to the diabetes research center ("the JDRF Center for Beta Cell Therapy in Diabetes") that is situated on our campus with the aim to develop and implement strategies for prevention and treatment of diabetes by preserving and restoring insulin producing beta cells.

Our research department includes about 15 people directly involved in research. The group has gained expertise in the study of beta cell development and regeneration. We study cell differentiation processes in the embryonic and adult pancreas with the aim to derive new beta cells from stem cells, or from transdifferentiation (reprogramming) of exocrine pancreatic cells. The aim of this work is to be able to increase or regenerate the beta cell mass by pharmacological agents like growth factors or cytokines, or by providing cells for transplantation. So far we have developed different rodent models in which neogenesis of beta-cells has been achieved. We also perform in depth studies on molecular mechanisms controlling or directing pancreatic cell differentiation. For this, our work deals with rodent as well as human pancreas and ES cells. We are also interested in identifying new markers and regulators of pancreatic cell differentiation.

Expertise relevant for BetaImage includes experimental animal models of diabetes, of beta cell transplantation, beta cell mass expansion and regeneration. We have the tools and skills for immunohistochemical-microscopic analysis of animal or human pancreas, and for assessing pancreatic cell differentiation at RNA and protein level in vitro and in vivo. We have standardised methods for measuring beta cell mass in tissue slices by morphometry. We dispose of collections of paraffin-embedded tissue, frozen tissue, RNA and protein samples from embryonic and adult pancreas tissue and isolated cell fractions, all from the experimental models and their controls.