How microbiome research is moving from discovery to impact
What if the key to understanding diseases like cancer, Parkinson’s, or even depression lies not just in our own cells, but in the trillions of microbes that live within and around us? On World Microbiome Day, let’s look at how the microbiome has rapidly grown into one of the most exciting frontiers in life sciences. As scientists, including several research groups at VIB, move beyond simply cataloguing microbes; a new phase is emerging, focused on understanding how these invisible micro-communities actively shape human and planetary health.
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Algorithms and biological data - meet Dmitry Kobak
Following a PhD in bioengineering from Imperial College London and a postdoc at the Champalimaud Centre in Lisbon, Dmitry Kobak set up his own group at the Hertie AI Institute at Tübingen University. In 2026, he moved to the VIB Center for AI & Computational Biology. Time to ask him some questions.
On World Ocean Day, we celebrate the power of marine microbes
The ocean is one of Earth's biggest allies in buffering climate change. But some of its most important work happens out of sight, at the scale of molecules and microbes. At the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Microbiology, Sammy Pontrelli and his team study how marine microbes control the fate of carbon in the ocean, and what that might teach us about the future of our climate.
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An EPIC research trip to Stockholm
Eva Van Bun, PhD student in the Verstrepen lab, recently spent four weeks at the lab of Vicente Pelechano at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, to learn advanced methods for polysome profiling and RNA-sequencing. It was an intense month with long lab days, intense scientific exchange, new collaborations, and memorable Swedish traditions, all of which left her eager to return.
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