Elyne, Suzanne and Kathleen attended a HBOC-VUS workshop '​Functional Analysis of Sequence Variants in Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer Genes' in Leiden, the Netherlands. It was a really good organized conference were a lot of in field experts took part in. 

From June 22 until 26 Charlotte went to Montreal, Canada to attend the 17th International Zebrafish Conference (IZFC).
It was a small size conference with all experts in the field of zebrafish research, this allowed a lot of interesting face to face conversations and the ideal place to network.

Charlotte presented her work with a poster presentation and even in a short talk.

The annual ESHG Conference was held in Vienna from 11 until 14 June, for our lab Kathleen, Kim, Robin and Lynn were present.
Lynn had a poster presentation.

It was again a good setting for interesting talks about high level research. And as always great opportunities to get collaborations.
Also the networking event was a perfect place to get informal talks about our projects.

​See you next year in Glasgow!

Begin June Nele participate in a 4-day wet lab workshop entitled 'DNA bisulfite pyrosequencing - from whole genome to targeted gene methylation analysis' in Poznan, Poland.

Nele enjoyed the course and looks forward to use the new techniques in our lab.

Jeroen last paper about the role of Atm in zebrafish is published in the latest issue (Volume 9, Issue 4. July 2022) of Genes & Diseases.
You can find the open access PDF version here.
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We are very proud of our alumni team member and all collaborators! Congratulations!

On May 25th the SING kickoff event was held in the VIB building at the Technologiepark in Zwijnaarde.
About 150 researchers from the Ghent area came together to talk about there single cell research and listen to some very interesting talks.

For our lab Kathleen, Mattias, Lynn and Bram were present.

Yesterday on the 23th of May CRIG organized their annual OncoPoint Symposium. And after all the COVID troubles they could finally celebrate their 5th anniversary.

With Kathleen, Bram, Charlotte, Lynn, Elyne, Nele and Sophie almost our whole research group was present. All the PhD students presented their work with a poster.

Charlotte won the poster prize, congratulations!!!

On saturday 14 May the UZ Leuven held an interuniversitary symposium for young researchers and clinicians called 'Building bridges in pediatric oncology', Sophie had a talk titled '​The psychological impact of genetic testing in pediatric cancer patients and their parents'.

On the 21th and 22th april the joint two day meeting of the Belgian and Dutch Societies of Human Genetics (BeSHG/NVGH) were held in Bruges. Kathleen, Mattias, Lynn, Robin and Bram attended this symposium. Lynn presented a poster about her work on the rare genetic disease Seckel syndrome and Robin was selected for a talk about 'BRCA testing to identify patients eligble for PARPi treatments across different indications'.

The previous day, the 20th of April, the BeSHG/NVHG organised a Genetic Retreat Symposium specifically for young PhD's to train their presentation and networking skills. We compliment the organisation for this initiative. Nele, Elyne, Sophie and Lynn attanded. Lynn presented her work entitled 'ATRIP-deficient patient expands molecular and clinical spectrum of Seckel syndrome' in a fantastic short talk.

On the last day of march the Faculties of Medicine and Health Sciences, Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine organized a new edition of Research Day. Kathleen, Charlotte, Elyne, Lynn, Nele and Sophie were present.

Charlotte and Lynn were given the opportunity to presented their work. Charlotte had the full attention of the public with her work about a zebrafish xenograph model for ovarian cancer. Lynn presented her work about the expansion of the molecular and clinical spectrum of the rare disease Seckel Syndrome. Sophie, Elyne and Nele presented their projects on a scientific poster.

​This year's edition was great and attracted a large attendance.

Another new face in our team, we're welcoming a new PhD student: Nele.

​Nele will work on pancreatic cancer, her project is tittled 'Prediction of surgical resectability after FOLFIRINOX chemotherapy for borderline sescetable (BR) and locally advanced pancreatic cancer (LADPA)'.

Good luck with your project Nele!

The annual Oxford Nanopore Community was held online from 30 november until 2 december. Mattias and Bram attended.

Our team continues to grow, we're welcoming two new PhD students: Sophie and Elyne.

Sophie Van Hoyweghen project focuses on the psychosocial dynamics of genetic testing for cancer predisposition syndromes (CPSs) in children.

Elyne De Neef will try to set up in vivo functional assays for the testing of VUS in BRCA2 by knocking-in variants in the zebrafish genome, and subsequently assessing their pathogenicity. This will contribute to accurate classification of VUS.

Welcome Sophie and Elyne, good luck with your projects!

October was a really busy month meeting wise for Charlotte, she attended no less than 4 meetings:
- ZDM14
- Ovarian Congress
- Belgian Pathology week
- The Industrial Event from CRIG

At the Belgian Pathology week she won the best poster prize, congratulations​!

The first paper of Greet 'Prevalence of Germline Pathogenic Variants in Cancer Predisposing Genes in Czech and Belgian Pancreatic Cancer Patients' was published in September, you can find it now on PubMed.
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Congratulations Greet!

Bram attended on 25 oktober a mini symposium about welfare and humane endpoints in fish research.
Many thanks to the organizers for this ​interesting lecture!

Our lab went on teambuilding to Nieuwpoort, togheter with the other research groups of the ground flour from the Center for Medical Genetics in Ghent. 
We had a great weekend with a lot of fun and can't wait to do this again next year!

On 17 september the whole lab went, finally in real life again, to Brussels for the BESHG meeting.
Charlotte did an amazing job presenting her work to everyone and Lynn had a poster.

At the end of August the annual ESHG meeting was held virtual.  It was an interesting edition.
​Kathleen and Lynn followed the meeting, Lynn even had a poster.

In the beginning of this summer Charlotte and Bram went to Lisbon to visit the lab of Rita Fior at the Champalimaud Foundation (​Centre for the unknown).

Charlotte focused on the final details of the zebrafish xenograft protocols and Bram learned all about the tips and tricks to inject human tumor cells in zebrafish embryos. At the end of the week, Charlotte presented her work to the team and future collaborations were discussed.
The results of Charlotte's project will be presented at ZDM14 in October!

Many thanks to Rita and her team for the intersting week and all their help. We will miss the lab view at the tagus, the wonderful Portugese sun and delicious pasteis de Belém! 

Hope to see you soon.