Anton De Spiegeleer

TRIGG Principal Investigator
Postdoctoral member at Geriatric Department / Physician (Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UGent)

Main expertise

  1. Translational ageing research, focused on frailty and sarcopenia, including cell experiments, mice and C. elegans experiments and human observational studies.
  2. The influence of bioactive molecules such as microbial peptides and repurposed medicines (incl. geroprotectors) in human ageing: cellular effects, in vivo animal effects and pharmacokinetics.
  3. Clinical geriatric syndromes at the acute ward as well as in care homes.

Biography

Dr. De Spiegeleer was born in Ghent on the 29th of April 1989. He graduated with greatest distinction as master in Medical Sciences at Ghent University in 2014 and was accepted for the specialization Internal Medicine in the same year (first in ranking). In 2017, he received a FWO-aspirant grant to start his PhD at Ghent University under the supervision of prof. dr. Nele Van Den Noortgate (geriatrics department UZ Ghent), prof. dr. Dirk Elewaut (rheumatology department UZ Ghent) and dr. Evelien Wynendaele (DruQuaR laboratory). During his PhD, he received the Marie-Thérèse De Lava & Robert Schneider Grant of the King Boudouin Foundation.

Dr. De Spiegeleer is the author and co-author of several scientific publications in international journals such as Age and Ageing, Clinical and Translational Medicine and BBA-Molecular Basis of Disease. He also actively participated in several national and international conferences on ageing, muscle wasting and immunology. To continue the promising ageing research, in collaboration with the three main research groups of his PhD and which resulted in a patent, he received support from the Health, Innovation and Research Fund UZ Ghent to start the new research group TRIGG (Translational Research in Immunosenescence, Gerontology and Geriatrics).

Dr. De Spiegeleer also teaches qPCR practica and supervises master’s theses of Medical, Paramedical and Pharmaceutical students. In addition, he is an active member of the Board of Directors of different care homes in Flanders, and is involved in different national and international sarcopenia working groups (e.g. EUGMS sarcopenia working group).