Our second-year master's students had the opportunity to present their research at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences' Research Day 2025, alongside many other talented young researchers. They did an outstanding job! A special congratulations to Matisse, who was awarded the Best Poster Pitch for his exceptional work.  Matisse also presented his work at Oncopoint, where his exceptional research was once again recognized, earning him the Best Poster Award. Well done, Matisse!

We are happy to share our latest research from the Customeat project, published in future foods. The article is titled: 'Exploring aneuploidies in two-center isolated bovine embryonic stem cell lines: Implications for cultured meat production' ​ Do you want to know more about this research, read the article here.

New research from the Customeat project was published in Food Research International.  The article is titled: 'Nattokinase as a novel food-grade enzyme for long term cell subculture.' The article is about culture methods and the use of food safe enzymes for the production of meat. ​  You can find the article here.

Recently we published in 'Stem cell research' about our new stem cell lines created from urine of patients with Arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy. The article is titled: '​Generation of a human induced pluripotent stem cell line UGENTi002-A from an arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy patient carrying the c.817C>T DSP heterozygous variant and isogenic control using CRISPR/Cas9 editing'. ​Do you want to know more? Click here.

We are happy to share our latest review 'Livestock cell types with myogenic differentiation potential: Considerations for the development of cultured meat', published in Animal.  This review is written by our colleague Chloé Deelkens in collaboration with M. Olenic and E. Heyman, as part of the Customeat project.  If you want to read more, click this link.

Laurens Léger successfully defended his PhD thesis, titled 'One cell type, infinite possibilities: utilizing human pluripotent stem cells for modelling arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy and cardiac tissue engineering', and obtained the degree of Doctor in Health Sciences. His PhD was supervised by prof. Jolanda van Hengel, together with Dr. Martina Calore.  Laurens was a valued member of the team, his input helped broaden the  expertise and knowledge of the Medical Cell Biology group. We wish him the best of luck on his future endeavours!

New research from our group was published in the journal of 'Regenerative Therapy'. In this publication we discuss the targeting of ferroptosis to improve cardiac differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells. This article was authored by dr. Aalders and his colleagues, and is titled: "Improving cardiac differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells by targeting ferroptosis​". If you want to read more, click this link.

We are happy to share our latest work, published in the journal 'Applied Surface Science'. In this publication, the combinatorial role of aligned electrospun PCL/chitosan nanofibers, and dielectric barrier discharge plasma-treatment, was shown on stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes. This work is titled: 'Combinatorial effects of surface plasma-treating and aligning PCL/chitosan nanofibers on the behavior of stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes for cardiac tissue engineering.', and was performed in collaboration with the Research Unit Plasma Technology of Ghent University.

New research from our group was published in the journal 'Matrix Biology', highlighting the role of both cardiac fibroblasts and cardiomyocytes in Marfan Syndrome. The publication is authored by dr. Aalders and colleagues, and is titled: Three-dimensional co-culturing of stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes and cardiac fibroblasts reveals a role for both cell types in Marfan-related cardiomyopathy. The article can be accessed by clicking this link.

Jeffrey Aalders successfully defended his PhD thesis, titled 'Modelling Marfan-related cardiomyopathy in vitro using human induced pluripotent stem cells', and obtained the degree of Doctor in Health Sciences. His PhD was supervised by prof. Jolanda van Hengel, together with prof. Julie De Backer. His creativity and hard work truly expanded the stem cell research potential of the Medical Cell Biology group. We wish him the best of luck on his future endeavors!