Search results

One of the major concerns with the disease caused by Covid-19 is its severe course, which causes many problems that can lead to hospital overload. Early detection of whether or not a person is at risk of developing a severe form of the disease is therefore crucial to optimise patient care and hospital resource management. This is one of the objectives of the study carried out by QUALIblood, a UNamur spin-off, in collaboration with the Department of Pharmacy and many other industrial and hospital partners. Exploration of a cutting-edge technology at the service of health.

Arcadia is the name of an ideal society, a bucolic utopia. But it is also the name chosen by the members of a brand-new research centre at UNamur. This centre, created within the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters and attached to the ESPHIN institute, questions three themes at the heart of our contemporaneity: the Anthropocene, history and utopias.

As the largest and heaviest organ in the human body, the skin is the focus of Professor Yves Poumay's research. For nearly 30 years, within the Cells and Tissues laboratory (LabCeTi), he has been developing in vitro epidermal models that reproduce skin pathologies to better understand and treat them. A pioneering approach that offers alternatives to animal experimentation! On the eve of an international congress devoted to dermatology research organised at UNamur (see below), he talks about the importance of melanoma screening and details the latest advances in dermatology made in his laboratory.

Since the pandemic, this cry of alarm from the Nobel Prize in Economics, Jean Tirole, seems more relevant than ever. On 19 and 20 May 2022, the second Summit of the Common Good, organised in Toulouse, mobilised hundreds of thousands of internet users. On 24 May 2022, in Brussels, the Night of the Common Good raised over half a million euros in donations. And next year, the Our Lady of Peace Chair at UNamur will be dedicated to the common good. But what is this 'common good' that belongs to everyone and to no one? Four researchers from UNamur share their thoughts with us to stimulate our own.

Since 1996, the European Radiation Research Society (ERRS) has awarded the Bacq and Alexander Prize each year to an outstanding European researcher in recognition of the recipient's achievements in the field of radiation research. This year, the award was presented to Professor Carine Michiels, from the University of Namur.

The lysosome, a small intracellular organelle, is often represented as the stomach of the cell due to its acidity and the presence of numerous digestive enzymes within it. Its role? The degradation of numerous molecules and their recycling to build new molecules and fuel energy production in the cells. Since 2003, Marielle Boonen has been particularly interested in the lysosome. Together with researchers from UNamur, she has highlighted the role of a lysosomal enzyme called HYAL1 in the bone remodelling process.

In the summer of 2022, we set out to discover the qualified researchers at UNamur who were awarded funding by the FNRS in 2022. Today, we meet Alison Forrester, currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Institut Curie (Paris), who will soon be joining UNamur for her new term as an FNRS qualified researcher at the NARILIS Institute. Her research focuses on studying compounds that could modify the efficiency of the protein production process and thus open up new therapeutic approaches.

On 15 March 2023, Prof. Henri-François Renard and Prof. Alison Forrester introduced the new advanced bioimaging tools of the UNamur Morphology & Imaging technology platform available to a broad audience of users.

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.

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.