Please read first: we are an exclusively human research laboratory

Every study we run is conducted in human participants — healthy volunteers and patients. Our methods are brain imaging (fMRI, PET, PET-MR), psychophysiology, and controlled nutritional, microbial and pharmacological interventions in people.

We do not run in vitro experiments, wet-lab microbiology, or animal and rodent studies, and we have no facilities or supervision for them. If you are looking for a position in cell culture, bench microbiology, or preclinical animal work, this is not the lab for you, and we would rather you found that out here than after applying.

This does not mean we are uninterested in those levels of explanation — the gut microbiota is central to our third research line. We study it through its measurable effects in humans, and we collaborate with microbiology and preclinical groups who do the bench and animal work.

Take part in a study

We regularly recruit healthy volunteers and patients for studies involving brain imaging, nutritional or microbial interventions, and psychophysiological measurement. Participation is always voluntary, informed, and approved by the relevant ethics committee; you can withdraw at any point.

Studies vary widely in what they ask of participants — some are a single session, others involve several visits, dietary periods, or MRI and PET scanning. What is involved, and any compensation, is explained in full before you agree to anything.

To hear about current opportunities, write to our research coordinator Liene Bervoets with a short note about yourself.

Master’s and medical students

We host master’s and medical students for research internships and thesis projects across all three research lines. Projects can be experimental (running participants, collecting imaging or psychophysiological data) or analytical (working with existing datasets).

Get in touch well ahead of your programme’s deadlines, and say which research line interests you and what methods you would like to learn.

PhD candidates

PhD positions arise through funded projects and through personal fellowship applications — principally FWO doctoral fellowships, for which we support strong candidates through the application process. Deadlines are typically well in advance of the start date, so early contact matters.

A competitive application usually has a background in one of: medicine, biomedical sciences, psychology, nutrition, neuroscience, bioengineering, or a quantitative discipline with an interest in human physiology. Programming experience is valuable but not required at the outset; our analyses use MATLAB, R, SAS and Python.

Post-doctoral researchers

Post-doctoral positions arise on funded projects and via personal fellowships (FWO junior and senior post-doctoral mandates, Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions, and similar). If your work connects to gut-brain signalling, interoception, appetite regulation, or the microbiota’s influence on affect and cognition, we are glad to discuss a fellowship application.

How to get in touch

For research positions — PhD, post-doc, internships and thesis projects — contact Lukas Van Oudenhove.

For taking part in a study and other practical matters, contact our research coordinator Liene Bervoets.

For enquiries about a specific project, mentioning it by name helps — see Research.

LaBGAS Translational Research Center for Gastrointestinal Disorders (TARGID) KU Leuven — ON2 Herestraat 49, box 701, 3000 Leuven, Belgium