Cure Alzheimer's Fund Cure Alzheimer's Fund

Maarten Dewilde, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor in the Laboratory for Therapeutic and Diagnostic Antibodies, KU Leuven, Belgium

Maarten Dewilde obtained his B.S. from the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium, in 2003 and obtained his Ph.D. in pharmaceutical sciences at the same university in 2008. After earning his Ph.D. he left academia to join Ablynx, a pharmaceutical company specializing in developing therapeutic nanobodies (camelid-derived antibody fragments) against a broad range of diseases. As a lead scientist he successfully guided multiple projects through their discovery pipeline. In 2014 he went back to academia to join the Laboratory for the Research of Neurodegenerative Diseases (KULeuven) headed by Prof. Dr. Bart De Strooper. The primary interest of this laboratory is to unravel the fundamental molecular processes that underlie neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, and to use this knowledge to develop innovative strategies to slow down or cure these devastating diseases. Professor De Strooper and Dr. Dewilde teamed up to develop nanobodies against central nervous system (CNS)-related targets and to explore their potential to act as a generic shuttle to transport vital drugs over the blood-brain barrier.

Related Research:

Funded Research

These projects were made possible from Cure Alzheimer's Fund support.

Project Description Researchers Funding
Novel Entry Routes for Therapeutic Biologicals to the Brain 2020, 2022

$345,000
Nanobodies to Cross the Blood-Brain Barrier 2016, 2017

$300,000

Selected Publications

These published papers resulted from Cure Alzheimer’s Fund support.

Lies Schoonaert, Laura Rue, Bart Roucourt, Mieke Timmers, Susan Little, Lucia Chavez-Gutierrez, Maarten Dewilde, Peter Joyce, Adam Curnock, Peter Weber, Jurgen Haustraete, Gholamreza Hassanzadeh-Ghassabeh, Bart De Strooper, Ludo Van den Bosch, Philip Van Damme, Robin Lemmens, Wim Robberecht Identification and characterization of Nanobodies targeting the EphA4 receptor, Journal Of Biological Chemistry, 292(27), 7 Jul 2017, 11452-11465, Read More

S. Veugelen, M. Dewilde, B. De Strooper, L. Chávez-Gutiérrez Chapter Three – Screening and Characterization Strategies for Nanobodies Targeting Membrane Proteins, Methods in Enzymology, 584, 12/12/2016, 59–97, Read More

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