KU Leuven

Bowel problems are an early symptom of both Parkinson's disease and irritable bowel syndrome. The protein LRRK2 (leucine-rich repeat kinase 2) has been genetically linked to both conditions, but the exact mechanism was unknown until now.…

The chemical compound BPA (bisphenol A), commonly used in plastic products, has been controversial for years due to its adverse health effects. KU Leuven researchers have developed a BPA alternative with similar functionality that has no…

Loss of nerve cells can take place not only in the brain, but also in the (lesser known) nervous system in the intestine. A new study, conducted at KU Leuven and published in Nature , shows that specialized immune cells shape this nervous…

Sports scientists from KU Leuven will visit the Tour de France during the second day of rest. They test the Soudal Quick-Step riders on site and analyze the physical impact of weeks of effort. On the basis of blood and urine samples, they…

Museums, heritage conservators, private art collectors… they are all concerned about the risks of a poor storage climate for their collection. The new KU Leuven spin-off CHARP wants to unburden them with innovative monitoring software and…

Writer and performer Maud Vanhauwaert is KU Leuven's new writer-in-residence for the academic year 2023-2024. She follows in the footsteps of Bart Moeyaert, Annelies Verbeke and Saskia De Coster. As the university's in-house writer,…

Today's atomic clocks already keep time very precisely, but a nuclear clock could do even better. Such a clock is based on a special, unique form of the element thorium. In an experiment at the European particle lab CERN in Geneva,…

Laureates Sarah-Maria Fendt (KU Leuven/VIB) and Philippe Lemey (KU Leuven) have been praised by the international jury for their research into the metastasis of cancer cells and the real-time genetic mapping of viruses. It is the second…

At the moment, barely 1% of the necessary vaccines for Africa are produced locally. The ambition is to increase this to 60% by 2040. KU Leuven is working with the Pasteur Institute in Dakar to remove some important obstacles such as the…

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is the collective name for algorithms that can create new content (text, code, images,…). The best known is probably ChatGPT. Technology offers enormous opportunities, but also challenges us and…