Background
Goals
Without improved diagnostics, the cost-effectiveness of intervention using existing and emerging pharmacological and surgical treatments will remain suboptimal.
For these reasons, this hepatology biomarker VIB-GCP project is entirely driven by the following main diagnostic challenges:
- Diagnostic challenge in hepatology 1: biomarker-based detection of NASH and the activity of the pathogenic processes in NASH in patients with steatosis, to guide treatment decisions and monitor the outcome of treatment.
- Diagnostic challenge in hepatology 2: increasing the proportion of hepatocellular carcinomas that are detected at an early stage, to enable curative treatment in a higher proportion of patients.
- Diagnostic challenge in hepatology 3: avoiding transplantation of livers that will lead to catastrophic Primary Non-Function (PNF).
This VIB-GCP collaboration guarantees the further translation of established glycomics-based candidate biomarkers for the three diagnostic challenges listed above. These can go straight into validation studies and alphasite usage along current clinical practice to start yielding benefit for the hepatology patients in our University Hospitals. On top of that, the core discovery technologies proposed are all ready to go to clinical validation or exploration after these years of prior technology development.
Over the course of this 3-year Grand Challenge program, the following results are expected:
- Expected results:
- biomarkers with full clinical utility validation at the end of the project. Clinical investigational utilization in 3 key tertiary care key opinion leader centers in Flanders.
- biomarkers with solid clinical proof of concept, some of which fully prospectively validated and some of which the prospective validation will be well under way at the end of the 3-year project. Significant IP on novel biomarkers.
Facts & Figures
Thematic area
Innovative biomarkers
Precision medicine will be improved by translating innovative molecular diagnostic paradigms into clinical practice.
Promotor
Partners
The VIB Center for Medical Biotechnology (Director: Nico Callewaert) will coordinate the project and serve as the home base for the team that develops and performs the wet lab analytics as well as the data warehousing and data analysis.
This VIB Center has joined forces with top expert hepatologists from the leading 3 university hospital hepatology and transplantation centers in Flanders.
VIB-UGent
Nico Callewaert • Lennart Martens • Kris Gevaert • Francis Impens • Leander Meuris
VIB-KU Leuven
UGent-UZ Gent
Jo Vandesompele • Hans Van Vlierberghe • Xavier Verhelst
KU Leuven-UZ Leuven
UZA

Contribution to the project
The VIB Center for Medical Biotechnology (Director: Nico Callewaert) coordinates the project and serves as the home base for the team that develops and performs the wet lab analytics as well as the data warehousing and data analysis. This VIB Center has joined forces with top expert hepatologists from the leading 3 university hospital hepatology and transplantation centers in Flanders (Hans Van Vlierberghe, Xavier Verhelst, Sven Francque, David Cassiman). Finally, four VIB core facilities are involved as R&D partner or service provider.

Expected impact
This project will draw attention to chronic liver diseases as a prevalent and ‘invisible’ scourge of 21st century healthcare with a huge impact on patient lives, healthcare systems, and clinical developments. As part of this project, multiple stakeholders will be involved in empowering patients to make the case for prioritization of research into chronic liver failure and potential new diagnostics and treatment options.
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Leander Meuris (VIB-UGent Center for Medical Biotechnology) says:
“As involved researcher, this project allows me to close the gap between research and healthcare, something I consider to be very important in pursuing research beneficial to patients.”
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Core facilities involved
The VIB Proteomics and Metabolomics Core are also involved as R&D partners, as they bring in newly developed methodologies.
Contact
