Sleegers Lab

The European Alzheimer & Dementia Biobank (EADB) unites cohorts across 18 countries to decode the genetics of Alzheimer’s disease. https://eadb.eu/
At CMN, the @sleegerslab.bsky.social plays a leading role, with postdoc Fahri Küçükali as our in-house EADB specialist.

#CMNcohorts #CMNconsortia

One year in, nearly 200 re-inclusions and a clearer picture of healthy brain aging!

The 1000 Healthy Elderly Study has become a real engine for discovery.

Thanks to all of our volunteers and a special shout-out to Sofie Van de kerckhoven for the excellence at intake and sampling! bit.ly/4gV9TLk

Joint PhD position on developing genetic risk scores as biomarkers for neurological disorders - VIB The Rademakers team and the Sleegers team at the VIB-UAntwerp Center for Molecular Neurology, Belgium a

🚨 #PhD opportunity! Sleegers & Rademakers Labs are looking for a PhD candidate to develop biomarkers for neurological disorders by integrating genomics & transcriptomics data🧠🔬

@cmn-vib.bsky.social 📍 Antwerp, Belgium | 💡 Genetics • Bioinformatics • Neuroscience

Apply 👉 jobs.vib.be/j/124544/joi...

🌪️ Storm aan talent op komst: ontdek de selectie van de Vlaamse #PhDCup 2025 🏆

Lees meer en ontdek alle kandidaten 👉 www.phdcup.be/nieuws/storm...

@uantwerpen.be @kuleuvenuniversity.bsky.social #uhasselt #ugent #vub @fwovlaanderen.bsky.social

Our postdoc @verwilt.bsky.social is selected for the @scimingo.bsky.social PhD Cup for his research during his PhD! 💥 Let's see how his findings can impact Alzheimer's Disease 🧠🧬🩸

@fwovlaanderen.bsky.social @ugent-fge.bsky.social @cmn-vib.bsky.social @viblifesciences.bsky.social @uantwerpen.be

Over the moon to be selected for the Flemish #PhDCup 2025 for my research at @ugent-fge.bsky.social at the OncoRNALab with @jvdesomp.bsky.social and Pieter Mestdagh! @fwovlaanderen.bsky.social

Big congrats to @verwilt.bsky.social‬ from the @sleegerslab.bsky.social‬ on his FWO fellowship! He’ll be mapping RNA and DNA in blood, CSF, even tear fluid, to develop non-invasive biomarkers for Alzheimer’s using long-read sequencing. https://tinyurl.com/ym6c8csr

Ciao Milano! We are happy and excited to be here for #eshg2025 @eshg.bsky.social

Come find us during the oral and poster presentations by our team members Fahri Küçükali (@maegsul.bsky.social) & Celeste Laureyssen (@celestelaureyssen.bsky.social) today and tomorrow 🧬 🧠

What a poster! Master’s student in our lab, Kato Nauwelaers, won third prize for her poster at NeuroDay 2025 @uantwerpen.be! Congrats Kato! 🎉

Look at us! 🤩 We presented the excuting research going on in our lab at the @uantwerpen.be NeuroDay 2025. So great to with fellow neuroscientist! 🧠

A new chapter in our lab has begun! Our postdoc @verwilt.bsky.social has received an FWO Junior Fellowship to look for non-invasive extracellular biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease. Stay tuned for some cool research! @fwovlaanderen.bsky.social

YOU MUST BE KIDDING ME! 🥳 Extremely happy to be selected as a Junior FWO Postdoctoral fellowship! Stay tuned for novel extracellular biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease! Can’t wait to jump in these three years! 🧠🩸🧬 #fwo #RNA #cfDNA #alzheimers @fwovlaanderen.bsky.social @sleegerslab.bsky.social

The road to discovery - a collaborative effort towards new insights in blood plasma RNA profiling After more than seven years of research, our extracellular RNA quality control (exRNAQC) study has culminated in a scientific publication. This milestone is not just about sharing new findings – it re...

7 years in the making... 1.6 liters of blood and 11 billion sequencing reads to compare 456 extracellular transcriptomes.

Our best practices for blood plasma extracellular RNA profiling have been published as a peer-reviewed article.

communities.springernature.com/posts/the-ro...

Finally out! The exRNAQC Consortium is very happy to present this milestone benchmark on blood tubes and RNA extraction kits for extracellular RNA research out in @natcomms.nature.com! The associated blog post tells a story of a lengthy effort and multi-facetted collaboration🩸🧬

Our lab’s recent hackathon ☕🧠💻 was a success: three packed days, one awesome crew, endless ideas. We built fresh neurogenomics tools and leveled-up team vibes 🚀🧬

📢 More info & application details: www.uantwerpen.be/en/jobs/vaca...

#PhDPosition #MolecularBiology #CancerGenomics

🚨 PhD Position Alert! 🚨
We're excited to announce a collaborative PhD opportunity with @uantwerpen.be LEMP, investigating the role of mucin splicing in colorectal cancer. If you're passionate about RNA biology, omics, and translational research, this could be the perfect fit!

Multiomic analyses direct hypotheses for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease risk genes Küçükali & Hill et al. integrate GWAS data with transcriptome and proteome-wide association studies to better understand risk factors for sporadic Creu

Exciting news! Our paper on GWAS gene prioritization for Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease is now published in Brain! 🧠🧬 @brain1878.bsky.social

We leverage eQTL and pQTL catalogues to identify prioritized risk genes with potential roles in prion disease.

Check it out here: academic.oup.com/brain/advanc...

Multiomic analyses direct hypotheses for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease risk genes Küçükali & Hill et al. integrate GWAS data with transcriptome and proteome-wide association studies to better understand risk factors for sporadic Creu

New paper on risk genes for sporadic CJD academic.oup.com/brain/advanc...

Very happy to see our review on Alzheimer's disease rare genetic variants published in @natrevneurol.bsky.social! 🧠🧬

Huge congrats to our PhD student @laradedeyn.bsky.social 🎉👏✨

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New online! The impact of rare genetic variants on Alzheimer disease https://bit.ly/4hntQtT

From tears to AD biomarkers! @verwilt.bsky.social recently received a 10.000 euro @uantwerpen.bsky.social BOF KP grant to kickstart our research on the biomarker potential of tear fluid RNA in AD! 🥲🧬

We have an open position for a PhD student to look for new #biomarkers for #epilepsy and #alzheimersdisease in blood/serum, cerebrospinal fluid, and brain tissue samples. 📈 🩸 🧠
A joint position in the @sleegerslab.bsky.social and Weckhuysen lab.
All info 👉 cmn.sites.vib.be/en/join-us#/...

💼💥Ph.D. JOB ALERT!!! Together with the lab of Prof. Weckhuysen, we are looking for a motivated Ph.D. student 🧑‍🎓 to explore the wonders of liquid biopsies and help diagnosing Alzheimer's disease and epilepsy patients 🧠🩸

🧠 New insights into the genetic factors that drive Alzheimer’s disease
👉 Read here: vibbio.tech/4izHlYc
🔬 Study led by Prof. Kristel Sleegers of VIB-UAntwerp Center for Molecular Neurology @uantwerpen.bsky.social @alzassociation.bsky.social

X‐chromosome-wide association study for Alzheimer’s disease Molecular Psychiatry - X‐chromosome-wide association study for Alzheimer’s disease

Finally out! X‐chromosome-wide association study for Alzheimer. Our new EADB work led by Celine Bellenguez in collaboration with GR@ACE, DEGESCO, EADI, GERAD, DemGene, FinnGen, ADGC and CHARGE. We identified seven X-chromosome-wide significant loci that need further validation.
rdcu.be/d2tWv

Current Understandings and Open Hypotheses on Extracellular Circular RNAs Circular RNAs are present in the extracellular space and could function as biomarkers. However, it remains mostly unknown in which fraction(s) of them are present: in lipoprotein particles, in comple...

🤝 Marieke Vromman
⭕️🧬 Very happy to share that our review on extracellular circRNAs is now out in WIREs RNA! We summarize the little that is known, navigate their daunting literature, and dive into hypotheses on their extracellular existence! wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

For the FFBD Faculty Research day, the @UAntwerpen interviewed our Ph.D. student @CelesteLaureys1 on her work on the genetic exploration of Alzheimer’s disease hallmarks . Listen to her explain her research! 🧠🧬https://open.spotify.com/episode/0isr8pKJq9w0GqLJpgrn7n?si=-05SPAOTQHKWZ34_FTIFDQ

Many thanks and congratulations to all authors who contributed to this great collaborative paper!

Stay tuned for more exciting findings from the broader new analyses by Celeste soon! ⌛️

In this study, we reveal how Alzheimer's disease risk variants discovered in large-scale case-control genome-wide association studies (GWAS) map to the diverse underlying neuropathological features of the disease.