PINT OF SCIENCE FESTIVAL
19-21 MAY 2025
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Today's technology is both exciting and scary at the same time. Will man-made technology always help us or will it one day outsmart us? To the rescue are leading scientist who tell us how they define this technology and what is needed to put it to good use.
Heart issues? Google algorithms to the rescue!
Nele Vandersickel
Post Doctoral Researcher
Ghent University
What does Google have to do with heart arrhythmia? Physicist Nele Vandersickel will explain that tonight! The network nodes that Google uses to personalize your internet browsing, can also be used to better understand how your heart works. Her work is a wondrous combination of physics, medicines, mathematics, engineering and statistics. Need anymore discipline to convince you?
What's for dinner? Antibodies!
Vikram Virdi
Postdoctoral Researcher, member of an ERC-funded team
VIB-UGent Center for Medical Biotechnology
Many diseases are treated nowadays with antibodies, pieces of our own immune system that have been engineered. However, uptil now, these engineered antibodies needed to be given through injections. But no more: Dr Vikram Virdi and a team of ambitious researchers have designed a system where antibodies can be 'eaten'! This will have a huge impact leading to more possibilities in the way we treat diseases. Ever wondered what antibodies taste like? Come and find!
Consciousness: is this what separates us from machines? (Title TBC)
Axel Cleeremans
Director, ERC Grantee
Neuroscience Institute, Université Libre de Bruxelles
[Tentative description] Prof. Axel Cleeremans is developing a new theory, the Radical Plasticity Thesis, maintaining that consciousness is a long-lasting property of our brain rather than just a static feature. In order to test it, he is taking a multidisciplinary approach including psychological studies and advanced brain imaging.
