PhD in gene therapy

This PhD offer is part of the GT4Health project, funded by the Walloon Region as part of its Win4Excellence program. It aims to develop various disruptive technologies as solutions to major challenges in the gene therapy sector. This multidisciplinary project involves ten partners from five French-speaking Belgian universities (ULiège, ULB, UCL, UNamur and UMons), as well as the CER Groupe research centre. In this project, viral and non-viral vectors will be used to develop innovative personalised therapeutic solutions, enabling researchers to tackle serious hereditary and chronic diseases and cancers by validating a variety of therapeutic targets.

Specifically, the project will tackle transient gene therapy to improve liver regeneration and prevent post-surgical liver failure

Background: Liver failure in cirrhosis has a high mortality rate (>50% at 5 years in severe cirrhosis). The risk of acute hepatocellular failure makes 1 in 5 liver tumour patients ineligible for potentially curative surgical removal.

Question: Can gene therapy improve liver regeneration in situations of critical functional deficit, such as post-surgical failure and life-threatening cirrhosis, using animal models and non-viral vectors to modulate regeneration and cell differentiation pathways?