Lieven Lagae

Lieven Lagae serves as a full professor in the Department of Development and Regeneration at KU Leuven's Faculty of Medicine. He holds dual clinical-research appointments at UZ Leuven's Unit Locomotor and Neurological Disorders and maintains active memberships in three university-wide institutes: the Brain Institute (LBI), Child & Youth Institute (L-C&Y), and Institute for Rare Diseases (Leuven.IRD). His institutional leadership includes service on the Faculty of Medicine Council and Departmental Council as senior academic staff.

His research program focuses on pediatric epilepsy with particular emphasis on drug-resistant syndromes, neurophysiological monitoring, and rare disease mechanisms. He pioneers multimodal wearable EEG technology for long-term seizure detection and sleep analysis in children, while concurrently investigating genetic underpinnings of epileptic encephalopathies through international consortia. His therapeutic development work spans zebrafish-based drug discovery platforms and clinical translation of novel antiseizure compounds for conditions like Dravet syndrome.

Analysis of his 2025 publications reveals three dominant research trajectories: genetic epilepsy characterization (GABRG2/GABRB1 variants), advanced seizure monitoring technology (wearable EEG datasets), and clinical pharmacology of novel therapeutics (cannabidiol, fenfluramine, clioquinol). These works consistently address pediatric-specific challenges in Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, Dravet syndrome, and childhood absence epilepsy through multinational collaborations.

Current funding includes Promotor leadership for the European Reference Network on rare epilepsies (2023-2027) and Co-promotor roles in eight major projects with durations extending to 2029. These grants support EEG innovation (Advanced EEG Analysis 2024-2028), zebrafish-based Dravet syndrome research (2023-2027), and aquatic drug discovery platforms (2016-2029), demonstrating sustained institutional investment in his translational epilepsy program.

He operates within KU Leuven's integrated neuroscience ecosystem through the Brain Institute and Child & Youth Institute, collaborating with the Unit Locomotor and Neurological Disorders at UZ Leuven. His team combines clinical neurophysiology expertise with molecular genetics and biomedical engineering approaches to address complex pediatric epilepsy challenges across the rare disease continuum.