Research
libst | Louvain-la-Neuve
"I am among those who think science has great beauty" - Marie Curie
I also believe that today’s public health issues can only be tackled via a true interdisciplinary approach. By combining complementary methodologies (in vitro, in vivo, ex vivo, in silico), our lab aims to elucidate mechanisms and factors driving different features of liver diseases, with a particular focus on the central role of the gut-liver axis. Another major motivation of the lab is to generate robust scientific evidence to support the inclusion of gut microbial metabolism in food safety assessment, in order to better protect the EU population.
My research relies on 2 fantastic teams: the BNTE lab (LIBST, Louvain-la-Neuve) and the GAEN lab (IREC, Brussels ), and many insightful collaborations, fostering a strategic ‘farm-to-fork’ approach essential in modern nutritional research.
Zoom in on a selection of current projets :
Mechanisms and factors in fatty liver diseases progression
Chronic fatty liver diseases affect around 35% of adult people worldwide. The liver injuries range from excess fat in the liver (steatosis) to a more severe form (steatohepatitis) which can irreversibly end up in cirrhosis or liver cancer in a subgroup of at-risk patients. Strikingly, the mechanisms that operate at early, still reversible, stages remain poorly understood.
We demonstrated in mice that altered bile acid pool in the portal blood is key to drive steatohepatitis. But this has never been proven in humans as the portal blood is not readily accessible. Hence human studies focus on bile acid in peripheral plasma (routine sampling). With our kEBAP project, we aim to predict the portal bile acid pool using a physiologically based mathematical model. Besides, how gut microbial bile acid metabolism correlate with liver disease severity has never been studied in humans. Our BASiLic project will evaluate if and which altered fecal bile acid metabolic rates correlate with the liver status in patients with fatty livers, to potentially identify relevant biomarkers for at-risk patients.
Risk assessment of nanosized food additives
Every day, we ingest nanoparticles widely used in the food industry to color, adjust texture or preserve food. While useful, their effects on our health remain uncertain, particularly on our gut microbiota. Our SPINASH project investigates in mice the effects of chronic ingestion of silver and silica nanoparticles on bile acid metabolism and liver pathology. As a translational strategy, my ERC starting nanoBASH project focuses on developing human-based methodologies to capture the functional mechanisms by which food nanoparticles might alter microbial-derived metabolites, such as bile acids, to better assess their impact on liver in humans
