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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. 
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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.
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.  There is a new vacancy in our team, we're looking for a research assistant! At least 50% of your assignment will be spent on academic research in preparation of a doctoral dissertation, with as subject 'Prediction of surgical resectability after FOLFIRINOX chemotherapy for borderline resectable and locally advanced pancreatic cancer'. If you're graduated as a Master in Bioengineer, Biotechnology, Biomedical Sciences or similar, want to aim for a doctoral dissertation and want to join our fun team this can be your chance! Find all the information right here and maybe we'll see you in the near future. We have some new members in our research team!
Just like last year Oxford Nanopore Technology held their annual London Calling online. Kim, Mattias, Greet and Bram attended the meeting.  On April 28th CRIG organized their third online OncoDot meeting. It was again a great edition.
Charlotte was selected for a storm session. She pitched her abstract ‘HEADING TOWARDS AN IN VIVO PREDICTIVE TEST FOR PERSONALIZED OVARIAN CANCER TREATMENT: APPLICATION OF NOVEL THERAPIES IN ZEBRAFISH PATIENT DERIVED XENOGRAFTS’. Also Greet had the chance to present her work, titled ‘PREVALENCE OF GERMLINE PATHOGENIC VARIANTS IN CANCER PREDISPOSING GENES IN CZECH AND BELGIAN PANCREATIC CANCER PATIENTS’. Both did a tremendous job, congratulations! Shout out to CRIG for organizing these three great symposiums! The Faculties of Medicine and Health Sciences, Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine organized an online edition of Research Day on March 25th 2021.
They invited to impressive keynote speakers who talked about the COVID-19 pandemic: Prof. Steven Van Gucht (Head of Service Viral Disease, Sciensano and Visiting Professor Laboratory of Virology, Ghent University) and Prof. Bart Lambrecht (Science Director VIB-UGent Center for Inflammation Research and Pulmonologist Ghent University Hospital). Also on the program was Lynn who was selected for a 10 minute presentation. She talked about her work on 'MISSING HERITABILITY IN BLOOM SYNDROME: FIRST REPORT OF A DEEP INTRONIC VARIANT LEADING TO PSEUDO-EXON ACTIVATION IN THE BLM GENE'. |
