Ruben started as a technician in the Laboratory of Membrane Trafficking of Wim Annaert at VIB-KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease after graduating from AP University of Applied Sciences with a Pharmaceutical and Biological Laboratory Bachelor's degree. He will now join the De Schepper Lab as a lab technician.

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"I love food! From the lovely Italian cuisine to Thai street food to Korean BBQ. It doesn't have to be fancy or anything, just keep it basic. Except for food, I love to travel and watch some football at the oldest club in Belgium, Royal Antwerp Football Club."

Ruoxin just completed his Master's degree and will now start a joint PhD between the Maysheva and Pasciuto labs.

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"I love sports and watching movies."

Sara completed her Master's degree in Biomedical Sciences at KU Leuven. She will now serve as a study coordinator for the TRANSGEN project, which is a collaboration between the VIB-CMN and the Center of Medical Genetics (CMG) in Antwerp, involving various research groups from both centers. Her primary responsibilities will include recruiting patients for research and collecting and processing their samples.

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"I'm a member of the Antwerp ladies volleyball team, so I spend most of my free time on the volleyball court. I also enjoy spending time with my golden retriever 'Fidel' and going out for dinner with friends."

Anne completed her PhD in the Storkebaum lab at the Donders Institute in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. During her studies, she focused on the molecular mechanisms underlying amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Charcot-Marie-Tooth peripheral neuropathy. She will now join the Mancuso lab to investigate the role of microglia in Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal degeneration, as well as to explore novel therapeutic strategies.

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"I find joy in many different activities. I love to enjoy good food in nice company. I have a DIY project ongoing at all times, and depending on the mood, I like to work out or practice yoga. During vacations, I want to be on top of a mountain either for skiing or hiking."

Lunkyadi holds a Master's degree in Mathematics from KU Leuven, where he specialized in data science. He will be joining the Malysheva lab to work on developing and applying generative AI and counterfactual data augmentation approaches for studying the development of neurodegenerative diseases. The goal is to reconstruct a time progression of electronic health records (EHRs) from the pre-disease onset to identify biomarkers or latent variables that may be causal to the disease or its progression. 

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"I love to run! I just did the 20km door Brussel, and I'm looking to do my first marathon. If anyone would like to run together I would be down!"

Sofie always worked as a hospital nurse. First, she was in the gastro-hepatology department, and afterward, in the immunology and allergology day hospital. Now, she'll join the Sleegers lab as a research nurse to support the 1000 healthy elderly study.

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"Besides my work, I have to care for my two small kids, and I like to sew clothes for them."

Anna did her first postdoc at the lab of Bart De Strooper at the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research. She now joined Renzo Mancuso's lab as a senior postdoc working on human microglia biology. 

Clara completed her Bachelor's in Chemistry in Zaragoza, Spain. She then decided to change her path to Neurosciences by enrolling in a Master's online program at the University of Bordeaux in France. During her Master's program, she completed her thesis as an Erasmus student at VIB-KU Leuven, and then went on to pursue a PhD at the same center. She has now joined Emanuela Pasciuto's lab where she will conduct a new PhD research on exploring the role of the immune system in the ADNP deficiency model of syndromic autism.

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"I like to do some sport, particularly running, and I love to travel whenever I have the opportunity. Also, I like to learn new languages, but Dutch is still a big challenge for me!"

Rosie grew up in Ireland before moving to the Netherlands to pursue her Bachelor's degree in Science from Maastricht University. She later moved to Antwerp to complete her master's in Biomedical Sciences. Under the guidance of Prof. Bruffaerts and Prof. Rademakers, she will study language in FTD and aim to understand the connections between genetics and the various clinical phenotypes in FTD.

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"I enjoy swimming in the wild in lakes and the sea and will swim every Christmas!"

Cindy completed her Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Cologne and later obtained a Master of Science in Immunology from the Life & Medical Sciences Institute of the University of Bonn. Now, she will be working as a PhD student in the Mancuso lab to research and gain a better understanding of the functional contribution of microglia in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's Disease.

Zakaria has a PhD in bioinformatics, where he focused on testing different batch effect correction methods for Spatial transcriptomics data, particularly on the Visium platform. He also traveled abroad to work on his thesis at the lab of Professor Lundeberg, who was part of the team that first introduced this technology. Zakaria will now join the Weckhuysen lab to develop an integrated multi-omics pipeline for long-read sequencing data. The goal of this project is to better understand the genetics of early-onset epilepsy, identify disease pathways, and reduce the diagnostic gap.

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"I enjoy going to the gym because I am a powerlifter. I also enjoy reading books about philosophy and economics, and I love watching anime."

Birgit has a Bachelor's degree in Pharmaceutical and Biological Laboratory Technology from UC Leuven-Limburg. She started her professional career at the Neyts lab of Virology at the REGA, where she conducted research on antiviral therapeutics using both in vitro and in vivo techniques. For the past two years, she has been working at Charles River Laboratories as an in vivo study responsible within the HBV team. Now, she is joining the MIND lab, where she will provide practical support for pharmaceutical projects involving both in vivo and in vitro techniques. She is excited about expanding her in vivo skill set to neurological techniques and getting the opportunity to learn about iPSCs, histology, and FACS.

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"On Friday evenings, you can find me at the weekly rehearsal of Fanfare De Ware Vrienden, where I play the soprano saxophone. I'm also an active member of the Youth Council of Vosselaar. In the little free time I have left beside that, I indulge in reading a good book or baking."

Nicola, or Nico, completed his BSc in Biotechnology and MSc in Neurobiology at the University of Trento in Italy, with some country-hopping in between. He then earned his PhD from the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Brain and Disease, where he worked on developing a microglia xenotransplantation model. He has now joined the Mancuso lab to continue working with microglia, which he considers the best cell type ever. In his new role, he will be focusing on researching the genetics of Alzheimer’s disease and developing new methodologies for cell replacement therapies.

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"If we Zoom meet, there is a high chance that you will meet my chubby cat."

Robin has a Bioscience Engineering degree from the University of Antwerp and a Master of Science in Bioscience Engineering from the University of Ghent. He completed his PhD at the Laboratory of Experimental Cancer Research, focusing on extracellular vesicles in breast cancer. He now joins VIB Technologies to set up a VIB Technologies Satellite at CMN. The aim is to provide access and support to cutting-edge technologies for single-cell level sample analysis. Specifically, he will work with flow cytometry and single-cell omics under the supervision of VIB Single Cell Core and VIB Flow Core.

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"Apart from performing experiments in the lab, I love experimenting in the kitchen coming up with new dishes and exploring new cuisines."

Vanshika, or Vans, obtained a BSc in Biochemistry at the University of Delhi and an MSc in Bioinformatics from Ku Leuven. She joins the Rademakers lab to focus on analyzing somatic variants in FTLD-TDP43 pathology and study the impact of somatic variations on neurodegeneration.

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"Besides science, I love to talk about sustainability. In my free time, you can find me sipping coffee or working around some photography. Consider me a pro at organizing and cleaning."

Arthi finished her BSc in genetic engineering in India and pursued her MSc in stem cell biology and PhD in Immunology in Germany. During her PhD, she worked on understanding the role of innate lymphoid cells in autoimmune disorders. She will start her postdoc in the lab of Emanuela Pasciuto, where she will be studying the influence of the environment on the immune landscape and its role in brain plasticity.

Lisa did a joint PhD between KU Leuven and the University of Pavia in Italy. She will start as a postdoc in the lab of Neuroimmunology led by Emanuela Pasciuto. Her research project will focus on the gut-brain axis.