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On their own initiative, five masters’ students from the UNamur pharmacy department slipped into the shoes of 'Teddybearologists' as part of the 'Teddy Bear Clinic', an event organised by UCLouvain. They played the role of pharmacists, recommending treatments for children's teddy bears and explaining the role of their future profession.

Two new Master's degree specializations are on offer from the start of the new academic year. One will provide training in general medicine, the other in the management and economics of sustainable development. Other pedagogical innovations in existing course programs are also proposed, including a course designed to train block students in the challenges of Artificial Intelligence and develop their critical thinking skills to use AI in a relevant way. Through these innovations and new features, UNamur is demonstrating its ability to constantly adapt its educational offering in response to changes in society.

On 13 December 2023, Charlotte Beaudart, a new academic at the University of Namur Faculty of Medicine, will be awarded a prize at the annual ceremony for Belgian scientific research in support of her innovative research on the subject of ageing.

This is a first in the Belgian medical and academic landscape: a university observatory for rural medicine has been set up at the University of Namur. Its mission is to understand the shortage of doctors in rural areas and identify solutions, in collaboration with local stakeholders, to encourage future GPs to set up in these regions.

A team from QUALIblood, a University of Namur spin-off and the Department of Pharmacy has developed a blood test that assesses the risk of developing thrombosis. It is specifically aimed at women wishing to take a contraceptive pill or hormone treatment for the menopause. The development of this test and its availability to healthcare professionals is a world first!

"Take care of yourself to better take care of others" - this is the mantra guiding a wellness workshop for second-year medical students as part of the General Psychology course taught by Martin Desseilles, professor at the University of Namur. Taught by Laura Demarthe, psychologist and didactic associate in the Department of Psychology, the workshop aims to equip future doctors with tools to cultivate their physical, mental and social well-being. Professors at UNamur recently conducted a study on this initiative.

On Friday, March 1, the Faculty of Medicine hosted a Half Day of Exchange on Food Sovereignty (DJESA), organized by the UNI4COOP consortium, Humundi and Vétérinaires Sans Frontières. Led by Professor Grégoire Wiëers, Director of UNamur's Department of Medicine, and Caroline Canon, Master of Didactics, this event was dedicated to Block 2 students in medicine, pharmacy and biomedical sciences. An afternoon punctuated by a gesticulated lecture by Corentin Hecquet and awareness-raising workshops on sustainable development and interdisciplinarity in the medical field..

On March 4 and 5, UNamur hosted the launch event for the European ERAMET project. Led by Professor Flora Musuamba Tshinanu, this collaborative project brings together 17 European partners. Objective: to improve the scientific database guiding regulators in drug evaluation, with a focus on rare and pediatric conditions. A look back at the launch day.

The Elongator complex is involved in the addition of 5'-carboxylmethyluridine (cm5U)-derived modifications to transfer RNAs (tRNAs), thereby influencing the translation of certain messenger RNAs (mRNAs) and helping to maintain the integrity of the proteome. This complex is involved in a variety of biological processes, and is of particular importance in oncology. The identification of chemical inhibitors of Elongator is of significant interest in both basic and pharmaceutical research.Through a yeast screen, this work reveals a potential new role for Elongator and identifies a chemical inhibitor of the complex. This compound presents itself as an interesting candidate as a pharmacological inhibitor, opening up new perspectives for the search for anti-cancer therapies.

A multidisciplinary research team from the University of Namur (UNamur) and the UCL Namur University Hospital (Godinne campus) has just published a study in the journal Acta Neuropathologica that sheds light on some of the mysteries surrounding the origin of the pain experienced by patients with long COVID. Their findings suggest that these painful symptoms may be mediated by an autoimmune response. In other words: patients produce antibodies that attack their own neurons—those responsible for pain perception and deep body sensation, located along the spine. These highly promising results represent a major scientific breakthrough that opens new avenues for better understanding the disease and, ultimately, developing a treatment targeting the painful symptoms of long COVID.

On Monday February 19, students in Block 3 of Medicine at UNamur and Midwifery in the Paramedical Department at Hénallux took part in the second edition of a project to raise awareness of domestic violence. Conceived by the two institutions, the project takes the form of an escape game entitled "Oseras-tu poser la question" ("Dare to ask the question"). Used as part of the practical work on "Professional communication in healthcare" in the Medical Psychology course taught by Martin Desseilles, professor at the Faculty of Medicine at UNamur, this escape game aims to train future healthcare professionals to detect signs of domestic violence in patients during consultations and to act accordingly.

COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. COVID-19 was quickly declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020.At the start of the pandemic, healthcare professionals were faced with the marketing of numerous kits designed to measure binding antibodies. The role of neutralizing antibodies as the best correlate of protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection was quickly highlighted. A neutralization assay with the use of pseudovirus was therefore developed by our team and compared with several binding assays.There have been considerable efforts to produce and clinically validate new vaccines against COVID-19. The CRO-VAX HCP study was designed to assess the humoral response in a population of healthcare professionals who had received two doses of COVID-19 BNT162b2 vaccine.Given the decline in vaccine efficacy over time and the emergence of variants likely to evade immunity, a third dose was quickly recommended by the authorities to boost immunity. This was administered to 155 volunteers in the CRO-VAX HCP study.Still facing a decline in vaccine efficacy over time and the emergence of new variants, a second adapted booster was proposed. In September 2022, 54 participants in the CRO-VAX HCP study received this second booster. The humoral response was assessed and neutralizing antibodies against several variants were measured. In addition, we also measured the cellular response using an interferon-gamma release assay. Compared with the humoral response, which declines considerably over time, the cellular response remained fairly stable. This could therefore explain why individuals with low antibody titers can still be protected against a severe form of the disease .