LUCID - News Feed

NWO Open Technologies Programme Grant for TITAN project

frederikepeters — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 10:47:00 +0200

Dr. Simon Jochems and dr. Lisa King have received an NWO Open Technologies Programme Grant for the project Tailoring Immunostimulators To elicit Airway ProtectioN (TITAN). This is a 660k grant between the LUMC and Staten Serum Institute to test novel prophylactics compounds that can protect against respiratory tract infections.

Mikhael Manurung awarded Rubicon ZonMW fellowship

frederikepeters — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 11:30:00 +0200

Dr. Mikhael Manurung has been awarded the Rubicon ZonMW fellowship to start a research project at the Wellcome Sanger Institute (UK). There he will spend 24 months investigating how ancestral genomic context shapes immune gene regulation during activation and influences the interpretation of autoimmune disease risk variants across populations.

Brandon Wilder, PhD receives NWO Tulip Fund for position at LUCID

frederikepeters — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 09:52:00 +0200

Dr Brandon Wilder, Associate Professor in the field of malaria vaccinology, has received the Tulip Fund of the Dutch Research Council (NWO) to start a position as associate professor at LUCID. Dr. Wilder will continue his research on a vaccine providing durable protection against malaria as part of the larger LUCID malaria research program in collaboration with prof. Meta Roestenberg, Dr. Blandine Franke-Fayard, Dr. Gopal Murugan and Dr. Annie Yang.

Strengthening schistosomiasis diagnostics through collaboration in Kenya

frederikepeters — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 17:00:00 +0200

Last month, Govert van Dam, Claudia de Dood, Maureen Blokland-Flink, and Pytsje Hoekstra (LUCID-R) spent a week at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) in Kisumu, working closely with Maurice Odiere and his KEMRI NTD team. The team performed the UCP-LF CAA assay on urine and serum samples as part of the Flow-S project.

Nature Communications Paper highlights effect of antibiotics prior to C. difficile colonization

frederikepeters — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 13:26:00 +0200

In a paper published in Nature Communications, Annefleur Hensen and colleagues detailed their novel clinical trial in which healthy participants were given a non-toxigenic strain of Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile). The study provides one of the clearest demonstrations in humans of colonization resistance: the concept that the existing gut microbiota acts as a natural defense system against invading pathogens.

Meta-analysis reveals universal microbiome signatures for colorectal cancer

frederikepeters — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 12:04:00 +0200

Using meta-analysis, Selin Pekel and colleagues from the MI-EOCRC project, an international group of researchers from the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland, assembled publicly available data from dozens of gut microbiome studies of colorectal cancer, reprocessing raw sequencing data to create a large cross-sectional “snapshot” of microbiomes across the world.

European ImmunoMetabolism Network Conference

frederikepeters — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 10:25:00 +0200

This month, members of Bart Everts' Cellular Immunometabolism group spent three days in Luxembourg at the third annual conference of the European ImmunoMetabolism Network (EIMN), of which Dr. Everts is the founder and chair.

BeNeFit grant for clinical study neurosyfilis

frederikepeters — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 10:18:00 +0200

Internist-infectiologist dr. Anna Roukens (LUCID-I) has received a BeNeFit grant together with colleague Chris Kenyon (Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp, Belgium). They will lead a project in which 30 medical centers in the Netherlands and Belgium will participate in a clinical multicenter study to investigate the best and most patient-friendly treatment for neurosyphilis.

LUCID team members joined the European Vaccines Hub for Pandemic Readiness Annual Meeting in Marburg

frederikepeters — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 11:14:00 +0200

Our department is involved in strengthening pandemic preparedness in several ways, including through participation in the European Vaccines Hub (EVH) for Pandemic Readiness, whose aim is fostering an interactive research environment within the European Union in normal times and a prompt response in case of epidemics/pandemics.

Immunodiagnostics group receives PPS grant with Okos Diagnostics

frederikepeters — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 13:09:00 +0200

The research group of Prof. Dr. Annemieke Geluk (Immunodiagnostics of mycobacterial diseases), together with Sander Brus (Okos Diagnostics), has received a public-private partnership grant from Health Holland.

14th Meeting of the International Society of Pneumonia & Pneumococcal Diseases

frederikepeters — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 14:58:00 +0200

On 17-21 May, members of the Mucosal and Systems Immunology group at LUCID Research travelled to Copenhagen for ISPPD-14 to meet with other scientists working to combat pneumonia and pneumococcal diseases

LUMC Junior PI Fellowship awarded to Dr. Sebenzile Myeni

frederikepeters — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 11:10:00 +0200

Dr. Sebenzile Myeni has been awarded a Junior PI Fellowship 2026 for her project "Lipid Droplets in Viral Replication and Antiviral Immunity: An Emerging Interface of Host-Virus Battleground."

NVP & BSPP Spring Meeting

frederikepeters — Thu, 28 May 2026 09:59:00 +0200

LUCID researchers specialising in the study of parasites travelled to Antwerp, Belgium, for the joint Dutch Association of Parasitology (NVP) and Belgian Society for Parasitology and Protistology (BSPP) Scientific Spring Meeting last week.

Schistosoma haematobium Glycomics Paper

laurienbakker — Tue, 19 May 2026 11:59:00 +0200

This month, the Glycoscience and Helminth infections research group published a significant paper in Nature Communications which has implications regarding the way that we diagnose schistosomiasis, a neglected tropical disease.

Dr. Rajagopal Murugan awarded the Boehringer Ingelheim Award

laurienbakker — Tue, 19 May 2026 11:03:00 +0200

Ahead of the Dutch Society of Parasitology's Spring scientific meeting, the recipient of the Boehringer Ingelheim Award for Parasitology 2026 has been announced as Dr. Rajagopal Murugan!

Microbiome Analysis Tool in Nature Microbiology

laurienbakker — Wed, 13 May 2026 15:07:00 +0200

Ancient Greek philosopher Hippocrates famously said, “All disease begins in the gut”. Two thousand years later, LUCID researchers are studying the human microbiome to understand whether he was correct and why, by looking into the molecular mechanisms that drive disease, from colorectal cancer to IBD, to mental illness. It all comes down to the complex ecosystem of bacteria and their interactions with host cells in the gut, says Prof. Georg Zeller.

LUCID Meeting Day

laurienbakker — Tue, 12 May 2026 13:36:00 +0200

Once a year, we take time out of our day-to-day work to come together, learn from one another, and identify ways to make LUCID even better as a department.

Prof. Meta Roestenberg Appointed to KNAW

laurienbakker — Tue, 12 May 2026 11:21:00 +0200

For her work on malaria vaccine research, LUCID head Prof. Meta Roesteberg has been elected as a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW), one of the highest scientific institutions in the Netherlands.

MUSICC Annual Meeting Rotterdam

laurienbakker — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 09:30:00 +0200

Together with colleagues from @LUMC Center for Cell and Gene Therapy (CCG), members of LUCID Research travelled to Rotterdam last week for the third Mucosal Immunity in Human Coronavirus Challenge (MUSICC) annual meeting.

Strengthening Leiden-Brazil schistosomiasis research collaboration

frederikepeters — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 09:21:00 +0200

Recently, Govert van Dam and Pytsje Hoekstra had the pleasure of welcoming André Daher from FIOCRUZ – Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Brazil) to Leiden to discuss collaborations on schistosomiasis research. The visit focused on ongoing work with Fiocruz and aimed to further strengthen the connection between our teams in Brazil and Leiden.