The Human Cell Atlas is an international effort to create a map of the 37 trillion cells of the healthy human body cell by cell, tissue by tissue. If that sounds like an overwhelming task, you’d be right… But with researchers now leveraging high-throughput single-cell and spatial transcriptomic technologies to investigate cells from diverse human populations, we’re creeping ever closer to our destination and the ‘cell nav’ of the future.
Read on to find out where we are and where we’re heading on our journey on one of the most transformative scientific endeavors since the complete sequencing of the human genome. Thankfully, visions like One Health aim to lead multiple sectors, disciplines, and communities in the right direction to find sustainable non-human-centric solutions to these challenges.
Let’s take a look at what One Health is and how the EU and Belgium are playing their part.
The vast majority of drug development focuses on the two percent of the human genome that codes for proteins. While functional proteins are obvious low-hanging fruits for therapeutics, an untapped world of potent drug targets patiently waits in the shadows.
Now, researchers and pharmaceutical companies from Belgium and beyond are gradually unraveling the secrets of the dark genome to find novel medicines for a wide range of disorders, including cancer, neurodegeneration, and obesity.
The world is more interconnected than ever. But our global network goes beyond humans: the health of all people on Earth is intimately dependent on the wellbeing of our ecosystems – our animals, plants, microbes, and the atmosphere that sustains us all. In this article, Belgian veterinary scientist Jan Spaas shares his thoughts on the ‘One Health’ approach from the WHO, and the bi-directional link between human and animal health.
Environments are scattered with the DNA of the organisms that inhabit them. Analyzing this DNA could shine a spotlight on how our planet’s biodiversity is changing, from studies in the depths of the oceans to the frigid polar regions. From a One Health perspective, biodiversity is crucial to promoting healthy ecosystems and healthy people.
But, while methods that sequence environmental DNA (eDNA) are increasingly powerful in detecting species without direct observation, we need increasingly powerful algorithms to make sense of the complex DNA world around us to truly protect our planet's biodiversity.
Belgium has long been and remains a global leader in biotech and biopharma, for now at least. The question is: can it maintain that position? Talent and know-how have been key drivers of the country’s success, yet the system supplying both is under pressure. Job openings in the biotech and pharma sectors are growing faster than the educational system can keep up, creating a persistent talent shortage. However, it's not simply a matter of numbers. As the skills needed to support and advance local innovations evolve – AI integration being a prime example – how can we adapt our educational approach while ensuring its stability? This is a question that needs to be answered in order to stay at the forefront of innovation.
Microfluidics is a technology that allows researchers to precisely manipulate and control tiny amounts of fluids within networks of channels typically smaller than a human hair. The approach is now achieving the extreme miniaturization necessary to truly enter the ‘lab-on-a-chip’ era, with profound implications for biological research and human health.
Meeting the needs of a growing global population while addressing the clear demand for a more sustainable food supply is challenging but not impossible. Innovative biotechnological tools are constantly being created, and they are increasingly available on the market. However, the industry is in desperate need of support, as EU legislation can act as more of a hurdle than a facilitator, hindering local advancement. flanders.bio is committed to advocating for the sector and highlights the most pressing challenges in their latest policy paper.
Ghent, Belgium, 15 January 2025 – ONTOFORCE, a leader in semantic technology for life sciences, headquartered in Ghent, Belgium, and Rancho Biosciences, the leading data science services company headquartered in San Diego, California, have announced a joint collaboration. This partnership aims to transform high quality data-driven research and drug development, providing scientists with unparalleled insights that drive discovery and innovation in the life sciences.
As 2025 comes peeking around the corner, we invite you to look back with us at some of the most exciting science topics we covered this year. From advances in women’s health, organoids, and organ-on-a-chip models to the challenges of data science and innovations in animal science and sustainable biotech; let us walk you through the Benelux life sciences landscape of 2024 as we reflect on the vast amount of knowledge and know-how characteristic to this region.
A world where we can 3D bioprint organs on demand is creeping ever closer to clinical reality, thanks to Belgian efforts to standardize the biomaterials necessary. Achieving this will have profound consequences for organ transplants, disease modeling, tissue engineering, personalized medicine, and drug discovery. But bioprinting success depends on multidisciplinary collaborations between material scientists, hardware manufacturers, clinicians, and other partners. Recently, these collaborations have reached the stratosphere, with a project to study cardiovascular aging with a heart-on-a-chip… in space!
The Human Cell Atlas is an international effort to create a map of the 37 trillion cells of the healthy human body cell by cell, tissue by tissue. If that sounds like an overwhelming task, you’d be right… But with researchers now leveraging high-throughput single-cell and spatial transcriptomic technologies to investigate cells from diverse human populations, we’re creeping ever closer to our destination and the ‘cell nav’ of the future.
Read on to find out where we are and where we’re heading on our journey on one of the most transformative scientific endeavors since the complete sequencing of the human genome. Thankfully, visions like One Health aim to lead multiple sectors, disciplines, and communities in the right direction to find sustainable non-human-centric solutions to these challenges.
Let’s take a look at what One Health is and how the EU and Belgium are playing their part.
The vast majority of drug development focuses on the two percent of the human genome that codes for proteins. While functional proteins are obvious low-hanging fruits for therapeutics, an untapped world of potent drug targets patiently waits in the shadows.
Now, researchers and pharmaceutical companies from Belgium and beyond are gradually unraveling the secrets of the dark genome to find novel medicines for a wide range of disorders, including cancer, neurodegeneration, and obesity.
The world is more interconnected than ever. But our global network goes beyond humans: the health of all people on Earth is intimately dependent on the wellbeing of our ecosystems – our animals, plants, microbes, and the atmosphere that sustains us all. In this article, Belgian veterinary scientist Jan Spaas shares his thoughts on the ‘One Health’ approach from the WHO, and the bi-directional link between human and animal health.
Environments are scattered with the DNA of the organisms that inhabit them. Analyzing this DNA could shine a spotlight on how our planet’s biodiversity is changing, from studies in the depths of the oceans to the frigid polar regions. From a One Health perspective, biodiversity is crucial to promoting healthy ecosystems and healthy people.
But, while methods that sequence environmental DNA (eDNA) are increasingly powerful in detecting species without direct observation, we need increasingly powerful algorithms to make sense of the complex DNA world around us to truly protect our planet's biodiversity.
Belgium has long been and remains a global leader in biotech and biopharma, for now at least. The question is: can it maintain that position? Talent and know-how have been key drivers of the country’s success, yet the system supplying both is under pressure. Job openings in the biotech and pharma sectors are growing faster than the educational system can keep up, creating a persistent talent shortage. However, it's not simply a matter of numbers. As the skills needed to support and advance local innovations evolve – AI integration being a prime example – how can we adapt our educational approach while ensuring its stability? This is a question that needs to be answered in order to stay at the forefront of innovation.
Microfluidics is a technology that allows researchers to precisely manipulate and control tiny amounts of fluids within networks of channels typically smaller than a human hair. The approach is now achieving the extreme miniaturization necessary to truly enter the ‘lab-on-a-chip’ era, with profound implications for biological research and human health.
Meeting the needs of a growing global population while addressing the clear demand for a more sustainable food supply is challenging but not impossible. Innovative biotechnological tools are constantly being created, and they are increasingly available on the market. However, the industry is in desperate need of support, as EU legislation can act as more of a hurdle than a facilitator, hindering local advancement. flanders.bio is committed to advocating for the sector and highlights the most pressing challenges in their latest policy paper.
Ghent, Belgium, 15 January 2025 – ONTOFORCE, a leader in semantic technology for life sciences, headquartered in Ghent, Belgium, and Rancho Biosciences, the leading data science services company headquartered in San Diego, California, have announced a joint collaboration. This partnership aims to transform high quality data-driven research and drug development, providing scientists with unparalleled insights that drive discovery and innovation in the life sciences.
As 2025 comes peeking around the corner, we invite you to look back with us at some of the most exciting science topics we covered this year. From advances in women’s health, organoids, and organ-on-a-chip models to the challenges of data science and innovations in animal science and sustainable biotech; let us walk you through the Benelux life sciences landscape of 2024 as we reflect on the vast amount of knowledge and know-how characteristic to this region.
A world where we can 3D bioprint organs on demand is creeping ever closer to clinical reality, thanks to Belgian efforts to standardize the biomaterials necessary. Achieving this will have profound consequences for organ transplants, disease modeling, tissue engineering, personalized medicine, and drug discovery. But bioprinting success depends on multidisciplinary collaborations between material scientists, hardware manufacturers, clinicians, and other partners. Recently, these collaborations have reached the stratosphere, with a project to study cardiovascular aging with a heart-on-a-chip… in space!