Prof. Leo van Grunsven is leading the LIVR team since 2009.
He obtained his PhD at the Ecole Normale
Superieur de Lyon (France) in 1996. After a short stay as a post-doc
in the lab of Ron McKay at the NINDS (Bethesda, USA) he continued
his post-doc for 8 years in the lab of Danny Huylebroeck (KUL/VIB).
In 2006, he joined the department of Cell Biology of Prof. Albert
Geerts at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (CYTO-VUB). As a postdoc he was leading a project on "Epigenetic modification of gene expression by interference with histone acetylation". In 2007 the CYTO lab started to work on hepatic progenitor cells when Prof. Geerts became coordinator of the IUAP VI project HEPRO. After
Prof. Geerts had passed away in January 2009, Prof. van Grunsven became responsible for the ongoing CYTO projects. In October 2009, he was appointed as full
time research professor at the department of Cell Biology. In December 2009, the new research team
LIVR (Liver Cell Biology Lab) was established in collaboration with Prof. Hendrik Reynaert (Physiology-VUB)
and Prof. Daniel Urbain (Dept of Gastroenterology - UZ Brussel) and Prof. Christiane Van Den Branden (Dept. of Anatomy - VUB). Since 2010, new projects have started, as Leo van Grunsven became
copromotor of HEMIBIO (EU-FP7: 2010-2014), GOA78 project (VUB-research
council: 2011-2015) and BRUSTEM II (Innoviris-Brussels Government:
2011-2014). An IAP VII project HEPRO II (Belspo: 2012-2016) was submitted
in October 2011 (decision March 2012).
Since 2011, The research teams of LIVR-VUB (Leo van Grunsven & Hendrik Reynaert) and Hepatology-UGent (Isabelle Colle, Anja Geerts & Hans Van Vlierberghe) established the "Translational Liver Cell Biology Alliance" to perform studies on the pathophysiology of the liver : by using in vivo and in vitro models of liver fibrosis, signals and processes that matter during liver fibrosis/cirrosis development are investigated.
In general, the objectives of LIVR are to contribute
to the characterization of the different liver cell types in healthy
and pathological conditions. More specifically, we want to gain
a better insight in the mechanisms of liver regeneration and the
pathogenesis of liver fibrosis and portal hypertension.
The ultimate purpose of our studies is
to contribute to :
- the development of therapeutics for liver fibrosis and portal
hypertension,
- the development of autologous or allogeneic cell transplantation
techniques, and to treatment of chronic liver diseases via stimulation
of the proliferation of local progenitor cells (liver regeneration
as alternative for transplantation).
