Research Projects

Iron is essential for all life forms as it is a core component of many vital metabolic processes. In humans, iron homeostasis is controlled by sophisticated processes regulating its storage, transport, and export. More recently, the role of iron in diseases also emerged with ferroptosis being a form of cell death that is implicated for instance in...

Medical artificial intelligence (AI) holds immense promise for transforming radiology by introducing advanced diagnostic capabilities. Yet, traditional AI models face challenges like extensive data annotation needs and are task-specific with limited generalizability to different scenarios. This problem of robust and label-efficient generalization...

Dysfunction of protein Tau is the main cause of dementia. Dementia associates with synaptic failure and sleep disturbances, but their connection remains elusive. In dementia, Tau becomes hyperphosphorylated (p-Tau) causing synaptic loss. Temperature fluctuations also associate with Tau phosphorylation, for example in hibernating animals...

In the brain, the blood vasculature harbours a unique specification: the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB), which restricts blood/brain exchanges to a select set of molecules. This particularity makes neurons blind to most peripheral signal. However, the peripheral organs and the brain have to communicate to maintain homeostasis and body functions such as...

Europeans are the largest alcohol consumers. Policymakers and clinicians are currently perplexed on how to reduce alcohol harms in drinkers, due to contradictory guidelines: abstention is proposed as the healthiest option by many health advocates, stating that there is no safe level of alcohol intake; but most nonrandomized studies found lower all...

Olfactory neurons allow circumventing the blood-brain barrier making this route particularly interesting for the non-invasive intranasal treatment of brain diseases (Alzheimer’s Disease). Moreover, commensal nasal microbes present in the respiratory region, the major surface of the nasal cavity, are assumed to induce health-promoting effects via...

FluiDx-AD aims to transform Alzheimer’s disease (AD) diagnosis and prepare the EU healthcare systems for the emergence of new AD therapies, with a 1st-in-class trio of In Vitro Diagnostics tests.FluiDx-AD tests detect a unique and proprietary suite of biomarkers in simple bodily fluids (saliva, plasma/blood), towards widespread, patient-empowering...

Approximately 4060% of the European population is at risk of developing hearing loss due to exposure to unsafe noise levels. The EDHI fellowship will develop a novel toolkit sensitive to the first signs of hearing loss appropriate for use as an early diagnostic. This objective will be achieved by (1) ideating innovative behavioural and...

The fact that the brain is influenced by the microorganisms that make up the gut microbiome substantially widens the scope of how we need to view human neurocognition and behaviour. However, a clear understanding of underlying mechanisms is scant and mainly grounded in animal work. This proposal aims at major contributions towards overcoming these...

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurological disease worldwide after Alzheimer’s and is the fastest growing one. Over 10 million people in the world are living with this disease, of which about 90% will experience difficulties with their voice as the disease progresses.At Teleatherapy, our goal is to make speech and language...

The environment is one of the most crucial determinants of health. The Global Burden of Disease report estimates an emerging impact in terms of disability and reducing the quality of life worldwide, particularly for the aging populations. One of the root causes of this decline is likely to derive from the interaction of socio-environmental risk...

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) has a debilitating effect on patients and their caregivers and leads to substantial economic costs. 15-30% of patients have familial FTD caused by known pathogenetic mutations. For the other 70-85% of patients, termed sporadic FTD, diagnosis is slow (~3.6 years) with frequent misdiagnosis due to clinical, genetic and...