I'm currently pursuing a Phd at the deptartment of Electrical Engineering (ESAT-SCD) in the bioinformatics group. More information about our group can be found here.

My research interests include the following:

• Bayesian networks and extensions of Bayesian networks for medical decision support systems based on clinical, microarray or proteomics data or a combination of these with applications in oncology or gynecologic oncology. This includes the development of methods to integrate the abovementioned data sources.
• The use of Least Squares Support Vector Machines (LS-SVM) to classify microarray data (e.g. breast cancer, ovarian cancer). Additionaly the use of kernel methods to integrate data sources (microarray, proteomics, clinical data).
  
• Reverse engineering genetic networks using Bayesian network and their extensions. Moreover this includes the research of publicly available data sources as prior information.

Workshops and conferences

I attended the following Workshops and conferences (project meetings or workshops are in italic):

• 2008
• 18th World Congress on Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology, 24-28 August 2008, Chicago, USA (Planned)
  
• Oral presentation: Multicenter prospective testing to predict malignancy in adnexal masses using Bayesian network models
• 16th Annual International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB 2008), July 2008, Toronto, USA (Planned)
  
• Microarrays in Medicine 2008, 19-20 May, Boston, USA
  
• PSB 2008, Big Island of Hawaii, January 2008
• Oral presentation: Integration of microarray and textual data improves the prognosis prediction of breast, lung and ovarian cancer patients.
  
• 2007
• NIPS workshop: Machine learning in computational biology, Dec 7-8 2007, Whistler, Canada
  
• 2nd DREAM conference, Dec 3-4 2007, New York, USA.
  
• Benelux Bioinformatics Conference, 12-13 Nov, Leuven, Belgium
• Poster presentation: Integration of microarray and textual data improves prediction of breast, lung and ovarian cancer patients.
  
• 5th Annual Cytoscape retreat and symposium, Nov 8th 2007, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  
• 17th World Congress on Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology, 7-11 Octobre 2007, Florence, Italy.
• Oral presentation: Optimizing variable selection and cost using a genetic algorithm for modelling adnexal masses with Bayesian networks.
  
• International Workshop on Probabilistic modelling in Computational Biology, 26 July, Vienna, Austria
• Oral presentation: Integration of expression and textual data enhances the prediction of prognosis in breast cancer.
  
• 15th Annual International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) and 6th European Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB), 21-25 July, 2007, Vienna, Austria.
• Poster presentation: A Bayesian network framework for modelling the regulatory mechanisms behind cancer outcomes.
  
• 8th BioPathways meeting at ISMB-ECCB 2007, July 19-20, 2007, Vienna, Austria.
• 2006
• RECOMB satellite conference on Systems Biology and Computational Proteomics, San Diego, US, 1-3 Decembre 2006
• Algorithmic Biology 2006, San Diego, US, 30 Novembre 2006
• Poster presentation: Integration of expression and textual data enhances the prediction of prognosis in breast cancer.
  
• Benelux Bioinformatics Conference (BBC), Wageningen, The Netherlands, 17-18 October 2006
• Poster presentation: A Bayesian network framework for modelling the regulatory mechanisms behind cancer outcomes.
  
• 14th Annual International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular BIology (ISMB), Fortaleza, Brazil, 6 Aug - 10 Aug
• Oral presentation: Predicting the prognosis of breast cancer by integrating clinical and microarray data with Bayesian networks
  
• In Silico Analysis of Proteins - Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Swiss-Prot, Fortaleza, Brazil, 30 Jul - 4 Aug
• Poster presentation: Integrating proteomics in medical decision support systems using Bayesian networks
• Probabilistic modeling and Machine Learning in Structural and Systems Biology (PMSB), Tuusula, Finland, 17 Jun - 18 Jun
• Poster presentation: Prior distributions for learning genetic networks
• SymBioSys workshop, Leuven, Belgium, 23 May
  
• Workshop on Knowledge Discovery and Emergent Complexity in Bioinformatics (KDECB 2006), Ghent, Belgium, 10 May
  
• 14th IFAC symposium on Systim Identification, SYSID, Newcastle, Australia, 29 Mar - 31 Mar
• Oral presentation: Integration of clinical and microarray data using Bayesian networks
  
• BIOPATTERN - EWADP workshop, Liverpool, UK, 15 Feb - 17 Feb
  
• BIOPATTERN - Bioinformatics workshop, Firense, Italy, 10 Jan - 12 Jan
• Oral presentation: integration of clinical and microarray data with Bayesian networks
  
• 2005
• Integrative Post Genomics Meeting, Lyon, France, 30 Nov - 2 Dec
• Poster presentation: Combining clinical and microarray data to predict prognosis of breast cancer
  
• Microarray uses group meeting, Ghent, Belgium, 18 Nov
  
• ERNSI, Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium, 19 Sept - 21 Sept
• Poster presentation: Bayesian networks with prior knowledge to predict ectopic pregnancies
  
• IUAP study day, Liege, Belgium, 19 May
• Poster presentation: Modelling ovarian masses with Bayesian networks
• Benelux Bioinformatics Conference (BBC), Ghent, Belgium, 14 Apr - 15 Apr
• Poster presentation: Modelling ovarian masses with Bayesian networks
  
• BIOPATTERN - Cancer data analysis workshop, Leuven, Belgium, 21 Feb - 22 Feb
  
• 2004
  
• 4th VIB Microarray user group meeting, Brussels,  Belgium, 18 Nov - 19 Nov