Senior Researcher, Institute of Experimental and Clinical Research University Catholic of Louvain, Belgium

As a senior researcher at the UCLouvain in Brussels, Dr Laure-Alix Clerbaux’s work is driven by an interdisciplinary approach based on synergistic collaborations and translational research. After a master in Bioengineering and Chemistry and a PhD in Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Science, she has been investigating mechanisms leading to liver and intestinal diseases for more than 10 years, in Brussels, New York state and Zurich, using various in vitro, in vivo, and in silico methods. During pandemic times, Dr. Clerbaux worked at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission as the main coordinator of an interdisciplinary project involving > 70 scientists worldwide aiming at organizing the plethora of experimental and clinical data on COVID-19. The team applied a toxicological framework to structure notably knowledge on pathological pathways leading to neurological syndromes in COVID-19, such as short-term anosmia. Furthermore, they exploited in vitro methods developed for testing putative developmental neurotoxicants to assess the effects of Spike proteins on brain development.