No, it’s not futuristic fiction: a contact lens with technology that imitates the effect of the human iris. It’s a hi-tech accomplishment that Ghent University and imec will now market: the spin-off Azalea Vision will continue developing and commercialising the contact lens.
Professors Jan Boone and Jan Bourgois are helping prepare Belgian rowers Tim Brys and Niels Van Zandweghe for the Olympic games in Tokyo. But what exactly are they doing, and what can we learn from research into elite sports? Also: why do the rowers wear Happy Sock-branded socks, and why is one allowed to eat sandwiches while the other isn’t?
These days it is mainly a tourist attraction, but Bruges was once an international world city, like London or Shanghai. The reason? Its many outer ports in the Zwin channel. New archaeological, historical and geological research has now made it possible to reconstruct that past in an unprecedented manner.
For the fifth consecutive year, the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Ghent University has come first in the Shanghai ranking. This ranks faculties based on their scientific research. However, what does it mean to be number one? And why do we deserve such a good score?
Four alumni look back at their studies and the direction in which they finally headed. What began along the same path led to many different places. Sarah, Lisa, Michaël and Zahra all studied social work, one of the programmes in the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences. What drives them is the will to help others and they each do this in their own way.
RNA, or ribonucleic acid, was long seen as a mere messenger between DNA and proteins. Today, however, we know RNA does far more than that. It is an exceptionally useful instrument and the target of new treatments in the pipeline. OncoRNALab researchers have now compiled the most comprehensive ‘RNA encyclopaedia’ in the world.
Every year, the City of Ghent organises the election of Student of the Year to mark the festive end of the academic year. This year exceptionally 2 extra laureates, both of them from Ghent University, were chosen. Meet Emma and Nicolas.
Summer schools help children and young people with learning disadvantages. But because of the corona crisis, pupils are struggling with more intense learning problems, and on top of that their mental resilience has been weakened. How can summer schools respond to this?
Where can you find the smartest students? That’s the ultimate question in the Campus Cup, which switched from Canvas to channel Eén for its third edition. Six different teams from Ghent University took part, and the team from Applied Linguistics in the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy went all the way to the semi-final. Here’s more about the students’ experience.
Remarkably, work that started as an occasional side project has resulted this year in a change to European law. Thanks to Liesbeth Jacxsens and Mieke Uyttendaele, more food can now be donated to those in need.
In the simplest terms, health is the sum total of the effect of genes, behaviour, and surroundings. But of course we can’t just change our genes. So, if we want to avoid getting ill, it’s more productive to consider our behaviour and our surroundings as they are the things we can influence. Ghent University, KU Leuven, the University of Antwerp and Hasselt University are pooling their expertise in the first large scale ‘exposome’ research project in Flanders.
What is feminism? Ask feminists of different generations and you will get a different answer. Equally, the way feminists are viewed has also evolved. A conversation about the importance of gender, inclusiveness and the future of feminism.
