When you start a new job, you always have the first-day or even first-week jitters. For me, this was not any different. My first workweek was quite unusual as it coincided with the lab retreat. This week was full of meetings, workshops and the ongoing and upcoming research projects were discussed. This retreat was a great opportunity to get to know my colleagues and their research topics. If you are interested be sure to read our blogpost about the lab retreat. 

After this interesting and fun week, I was looking forward to my first ‘normal’ week on the job. Unfortunately, this was not a standard week either. It was cut short as SARS-CoV2 started taking over Belgium. Due to the corona crisis, telework became the norm. After cleaning out a messy room at home, I created a private office where I could work undisturbed. As for everyone, adapting was not always so easy, but it was the perfect opportunity to read literature, write a review and freshen up my bioinformatic skills. I learned the basics of the R programming language, improved my Linux skills, and made my first python scripts. Additionally, I investigated what bioinformatic tools could replace our current tools to identify and elucidate novel nonribosomal peptide synthetase clusters. These new skills and tools will be very useful during my PhD. 

As the regular contact with colleagues has diminished, our lab has organized weekly meetings in smaller groups per research topic. The PostDocs take lead of one the groups. During these weekly meetings, we discuss what we are working on, and what we hope to finish by the next meeting. It is not only a great way of motivating yourself and keeping track of your own work progress, but it also helps to combat the loneliness and lack of social contact that comes with telework. Currently, the corona lockdown measures are gradually being relaxed. Hopefully, we can all start working in the lab again soon! 

Today, after a year of hard preparational work, we are launching our Isala project!! Yes, in the midst of the corona-storm, because legendary projects require epic times and also because good timing is overrated.  

So let me tell you about Isala and how you can really make a difference for your own health and that of thousands other women and girls of today and the future. Isala is a brand new large-scale citizen science project led by the lab of Prof. Sarah Lebeer at the University of Antwerp. Isala is named after Isala Van Diest (1842-1916), the very first female medical doctor in Belgium. She had to study in Germany because no women were admitted to Belgian universities at the time. But she persisted. And she made history. Because thanks to her, a Royal Decree appeared in 1884 that allowed women in Belgium to become medical doctors. So we named our citizen science project after this strong lady, because we are also looking for women who want to write history. Women like you?!

How can you help us? Well, there are millions of micro-organisms in your vagina that play a crucial role in your health. They are extremely important to protect you against vaginal infections, bladder infections, STIs, etc. and we suspect that they also play a major role in fertility and healthy pregnancies. Only… we are not sure. Until recently, scientific research unfortunately has not had a lot of interest in the vaginal microbiome. Isala wants to change this. With your help, we want to try for the very first time to better understand the female microbiome in Flanders with state of the art DNA technology.

“This groundbreaking research could eventually lead to new, unseen possibilities for both diagnostics and therapies.”

Prof. Sarah Lebeer

Isala is more than just an epic self-sampling citizen science project. With Isala we want to empower women to take their own vaginal samples, make them more aware of their own health and recognize alarm signals. We also want to break taboo and open the floor to facilitate communication about vaginal health.

Women in Flanders who want to participate can easily register via www.isala.be. If you do not live in Flanders or cannot participate but believe everyone should know about Isala, feel free to share our message with the world.

Let’s swab for the future. #LetsSwab

Lize Delanghe & Eline Cauwenberghs

During the last few months, a lot has changed in our lab. Some of our beloved postdocs decided to change university scene and a lot of new PhD students started. Additionally, our PI, Sarah Lebeer, received an ERC Starting grant (yeey!). Therefore, we decided that it was time to sit together with a new group and recap previous research projects and brainstorm about new ones. After making a planning and buying food for the whole week, we left for Kalmthout to start our labretreat!

After unpacking and installing at what would be our new home for one week, we started our labretreat with a brainstorm for the very next paper we would like to write. Tuesday was our first full day in the house and so the official introduction of our lab retreat. Sarah made an introduction presentation with a timeline of the lab (including some amazing pictures of the first lab equipment) and an overview of the ERC project. In the afternoon, we discussed novel technologies that are not yet used in our lab but could be interesting for some projects, including FACS, FPLC, knock-out mutants, … After the technology meeting, every PhD student prepared some slides for their short-term goals to update the whole lab. This way, other lab members could give input and offer help for future projects. On Wednesday we talked about lab optimization. Running a lab smoothly is not an easy task, but it definitely goes better if everyone does their share of the work. We have much to thank to our lab technicians for this daily smooth operation. Finally, the last day was filled with bigger project brainstorms.

Next to all our very inspiring and successful meetings, we enjoyed a lot of different social activities. For diner, we found some volunteers coming up with delicious recipes to make a varied and healthy menu for the whole week. Cooking together turned out to be one of the best team building activities! All tasks were divided spontaneously: from chef to sous chef, serving drinks and snacks to even checking safety (cfr. managing to take hot quiches in silicone baking molds out of the oven). After diner, thanks to the two dishwashers in the house, we still had time to play pool, table football and a lot of board games, such as the hilarious and absurd game ‘Shit happens’. One night, we even built our own cinema in the living room, including self-made popcorn! On Wednesday afternoon, we went out for a ‘real’ teambuilding. First, we managed to escape out of four very difficult and exciting rooms. Good proof that our brains were still working very well after all the brainstorm sessions (or some of us are quite goodat cheating 😉). After solving all the puzzles and escaping, it was time to give our brian some rest. We went to a cozy tearoom to have some sweets and ended our day with a sporty walk at the ‘Kalmthoutse Heide’.

Every year, the universities of Belgium pull together to organize a general symposium on applied bio(techno)logy. This year, it was the 25^th edition of the National Symposium for Applied Biological Sciences, held at the beautiful campus Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech of the University of Liège. 

The University of Antwerp was again well represented, with 11 researchers, of which 8 LebeerLab-members, mostly junior researchers and starting PhD students. Postdoctoral researchers Dieter Vandenheuvel and Irina Spacova were part of the Organizing Committee of this edition. Our PhD students presented their research to the broader public with a nice poster, and gained quite some interest from their peers, other researchers and company representatives present. Two of our students, Eline Cauwenberghs and Sarah Ahannach, were even selected to present their poster with a flash talk of one minute during the “Food technology, safety & health” and “biotechnology” plenary meetings. Eline’s research will further study the potential of our nasopharyngeal isolates as probiotic for the upper respiratory tract. This research was started at the lab 5 years ago, with the isolation of one of our most potent strains, and is now evolving to safety studies in humans. Sarah showed that during the first trimester of pregnancy, the vaginal microbiome of women in Flanders can be differentiated into 5 different profiles.  

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The present public could vote for the best poster. We are proud to announce that our PhD student Tom Eilers won the best poster award. His poster shows the practical flow-through of the discovery of a novel and unexpected cellulase in some strains of Lactobacillus mudanjiangensis, starting from the discovery via bio-informatics to the experimental proof. Apart from the nice present Tom has won, it is also a great recognition of the public’s interest in the research on the genetic annotation of novel characteristics we’ve identified in our beneficial lactobacilli.

The conference was concluded with some refreshments and locally brewed beer, and a possibility to network and catch up with our colleagues at the other universities. Proud of our poster winners, and thankful to everyone who voted, we returned homewards. We could all conclude that the organization succeeded again in making a successful edition of NSABS! We are looking forward to next year! 

Today we celebrate our 5^th International Women and Girls in Science Day. A day that recognizes women from the past and present all over the world for their challenging power, enlightening intelligence and inspiration for future generations of women. This day also gives us the opportunity to reflect on the gender imbalance in science. Even though the global population is more or less gender-balanced, this is not fully reflected in today’s science and technology world. 

Continue reading “Empowering Women and Girls in Science”