Because of preparation for the new semester haven't had time yet to write about this. Two weeks ago, I participated in the yearly University Trail @kuleuvenuniversity.bsky.social with post-doc Roeland Vanhoutte, PhD student Femke Speelman-Rooms and her co-promotor Flore Sneyers

Monday, during the first session of the Polish Peptide Symposium, there was a power outage. Speaker Anna Wardowska went in front of the audience anyway and held an impressive talk without slides about peptides as immune regulators. Fortunately for other speakers, electricity was back within 20 min.

Polish peptide symposium at a wellness hotel in Szklarska Poreba. Starting the day well with a 1.5h treadmill run...

Vacation to Norway (by train and ferry) without laptop. Only replied to emails if highly urgent. It was a relaxing vacation with nature, museums and running. On the evening I got back, exhausted, I went into the moshpit a Therapy? concert in my hometown Leuven. Feeling 17 again. Battery recharged.

Last Saturday, I attended - unfortunately not live, but hybrid - the retirement symposium of Prof. Hidde Ploegh. I enjoyed presentations of @kesslerbenedikt001.bsky.social @mbogyo.bsky.social, Domenic Tortorella, various other alumni of the lab, and of course of Hidde himself

Last week, I attended a networking event of the lab where I did my PhD: Biosyn in Leiden, since early 2000s led by Hermen Overkleeft. My presentation was about balancing academic life. Because I had the feeling, at several points in my career, that I was on the edge of failure and success

Also proud of my former group member Michaela Prothiwa who presented the first work from her own laboratory.

Great start of the third day of #ABPP2025 with an impressive lecture of Ben Cravatt on the power of stereoprobes for ABPP. Some further highlights so far include Markus Lakemeyer's work on identification of a B.fragidis protease that processes PAR2, and Alexey Nesvizhskii on FragPipe.

Great keynote of @mbogyo.bsky.social to kick off the second day of #ABPP2025 Impressive progress on probes for image guided surgery and for detection of Staphylococcus aureus.

Wearing my nerdiest t-shirt at the second day of #ABPP2025. Beware, the backside is even worse...

Good start of the second day of #ABPP2025. After a slow 5k run, I set off the fire alarm in my studio room while frying up some bacon and eggs. Those bacon rashers came out crisp, real crisp.

On Sunday, #ABPP2025 kicked off well with an inspiring keynote of Emily Balskus, a great, resourceful talk of Stephan Hacker, impressive results by Chris Parker and thought provoking screening assays by Matt Child.

Just returning from a 17km run through Regent's park and Hyde park, before going to the Crick Institute for #ABPP2025

A bit early due to an alternative train schedule (trainstrike), I'm on my way to London for #ABPP2025 Meeting up with my friend @mbogyo.bsky.social tonight prior to the conference start tomorrow.

Yesterday, I participated in a local trail run in Bierbeek, close to Leuven, together with PhD students Femke and Jonathan. Fun event and good to keep your life balanced!

Back in the lab to try out some chemistry myself!

Yesterday's journal club session brought another compound characterization quiz to sharpen the NMR and MS skills of lab members. Classic exercises on finding compound structures based on 1H & 13C NMR or finding the molecular formula based on MS.

On the menu tonight: a biiiig salad, with some garlic bread and pasta with gorgonzola sauce on the side. Paired with a piraat tiple hop. Yes, I'm hungry! #chemistswhocook

This week our 3rd year BSc students biomedical sciences perform their poster pitches for my communication skills course. In 11 sessions, we judge approx 180 students on their poster presentation skills. To save paper, we project posters on large flatscreen TVs. Overall, students perform very well.