About
Prof. Ellen Decaestecker is a full Professor at KU Leuven's Faculty of Sciences and serves as Chair of the Interdisciplinary Research Facility for Biosciences at Campus Kulak Kortrijk. She is an active member of the Leuven One Health Institute, connecting environmental, animal, and human health research. Her work spans multiple departments within the Department of Biology, with a focus on freshwater ecosystems and host-microbiome interactions.
Her research program investigates host-stress interactions in freshwater invertebrates, particularly focusing on three interconnected themes: the role of environmental change in disease emergence, the role of host microbiome in stress responses, and the role of epigenetics in innate immunology and conserved gene expression pathways. Through in vivo experimental setups, theoretical modeling, and molecular approaches, her team examines how freshwater organisms like Daphnia magna respond to environmental stressors including climate change, toxic cyanobacteria, and microplastics.
Prof. Decaestecker's research demonstrates that the host microbiome plays a critical role in determining resilience to environmental stressors, with implications for understanding disease dynamics under changing environmental conditions. Her work bridges fundamental ecological questions with practical applications in environmental monitoring and conservation.
She serves as Promotor or Co-promotor for numerous research projects funded through KU Leuven, FWO (Research Foundation Flanders), and international collaborations, with current projects extending through 2030. Her research group, MicrobiomeEcoEvo, includes multiple PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and affiliated scientists working across disciplines.
Prof. Decaestecker actively mentors numerous PhD students who investigate various aspects of host-microbiome interactions, with research spanning from microbial transplants and axenic Daphnia experiments to field studies examining natural populations. Her group maintains strong connections with other research units at KU Leuven and international collaborators, particularly in the One Health framework.
The MicrobiomeEcoEvo laboratory she leads at Campus Kulak Kortrijk serves as an interdisciplinary hub for research on host-microbiome-environment interactions. The lab utilizes advanced techniques including next-generation sequencing, microbial transplants, and experimental evolution approaches to unravel the complex relationships between hosts, their microbial communities, and environmental stressors.
