NARILIS lunch seminar | Johan Van Weyenbergh, KU Leuven

  • When Feb 10, 2026 from 12:45 PM to 02:00 PM (Europe/Brussels / UTC100)
  • Where UNamur, L12 auditorium
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We are pleased to invite you to a seminar given by

Johan Van Weyenbergh

Senior scientist at KU Leuven, Rega Institute, Laboratory of Clinical and Epidemiological Virology 

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His seminar is entitled:

Long COVID: an ongoing quest for biomarkers and therapeutic targets

Long COVID affects 400 million people worldwide, for whom predictive biomarkers and effective therapies are urgently needed. Combining whole blood digital transcriptomics and plasma proteomics, we found that viral RNAs significantly correlated with platelet-expressed genes/proteins and complement/coagulation pathways. Using a novel, cloud-based real-time analysis of personalized symptom scores, we found significant clinical benefit of Paxlovid, parallelled by a rapid decline in neurodamage/astrogliosis markers (NFL/GFAP). Multivariate logistic regression revealed antiviral but not antiplatelet treatment as independent predictor of clinical recovery in a real-world Long COVID cohort with long-term follow-up. Thus, our results provide mechanistic and druggable links between major Long COVID disease mechanisms: viral persistence, platelet/coagulation defects, and neurodamage.

Invited by Prof. Charles Nicaise, UNamur, URPhyM