Videos

Making chocolate mousse or mayonnaise without animal proteins? It’s perfectly possible using plant-based proteins, such as those from faba beans. However, these proteins can be rather capricious: some are ideal for a light and airy mousse, whilst others are better suited to a thick mayonnaise. Nutrition scientist Elia Veirman is investigating how factors such as variety and weather conditions influence protein formation. This will enable farmers to predict what their harvest is suitable for.

Imagine potatoes that are resistant to potato blight. Belgian witloof that tastes less bitter. Or chrysanthemums with new, innovative flower colors. ILVO researcher Tom Eeckhaut explains how protoplasts, isolated plant cells, can help us achieve these things. Watch the video

Did you know the soil beneath your feet could be one of our most powerful tools against climate change? Hui Xu explains how carbon farming, through practices like planting trees, growing cover crops, or reducing plowing, can help store 50 million tons of CO₂ per year by 2030. Farmers can even receive a reward for carbon farming. But there’s a catch: How do we measure it?

Controlling worm infections in cows - surely you simply use worming treatments, don’t you? Yes and no, says ILVO researcher Leen Lietaer. She is building a ‘community of practice’ that brings together farmers, researchers and vets. Because sometimes sharing knowledge works better than the best medicine.

Did you give your mum a lovely bouquet on Mother’s Day? Behind those beautiful flowers lies a great deal of work on the part of the grower. And what is the grower's greatest fear? That a fungus or disease will spread rapidly and destroy the entire crop. Arno Kasprzak (ILVO) wants to address this using drones and AI.

What if we could recycle CO2, just like glass or paper? CO2 is a major driver of climate change, but what if we could turn this greenhouse gas into something useful? In her research at VITO, Avni Guruji is exploring how to transform CO2 into valuable products, like fuels and industrial gases.

What if you could store your personal data in your own digital vault and control who accesses it? Computer scientist Dore Staquet is working to make this a reality by solving key challenges, like efficiently retrieving data when hospitals or services need it. His goal? Putting you back in control of your data, without sacrificing speed or convenience.

What if we could remove "forever chemicals" from water, without boiling a single drop? PFAS, the notorious "forever chemicals," can linger in groundwater for centuries, posing a major environmental and health challenge. Traditional methods to remove them are energy-intensive and inefficient, but what if there’s a smarter way? Researcher Pieter-Jan Piccard is using machine learning models to design advanced membranes that filter out PFAS and other harmful molecules without the need for boiling.

Every year, millions of tons of plastic break down into micro and nanoplastics, infiltrating our oceans, food, and even the air! Yet these tiny particles remain nearly undetectable. That's why chemist Géraldine Dumont is using a technique to trap, analyze, and identify plastics -even at the nanometer scale- using their unique chemical fingerprints. Her work aims to reveal the true scale of plastic pollution because, as she puts it, "The better we measure, the better we can protect our environment."

Too many lives are lost to cancer because it’s found too late. Current detection methods are slow, costly, and sometimes unreliable. But what if our blood holds the key? Researcher Ehsan Mohammadi (VITO - KU Leuven - imec) is exploring how tiny particles released by our cells can signal early signs of cancer.

Did you know that the data from your sports watch can help detect heart disease? Every day, millions of pieces of health data are collected in Belgium: from your movement and heart rate to your sleep quality and blood pressure. This data is gathered via smartphones, sports watches, and doctors, but often remains fragmented and unused. Via 'We Are', a secure online platform, you can consciously connect and share your health data, as researcher Cato van Schyndel explains.

In coastal regions, freshwater rivers and the salty sea are locked in a constant tug-of-war. Seawater can creep inland, turning freshwater sources too salty for drinking. That's why Sait Mutlu Karahan (VITO - UGent) is developing a kind of "weather forecast for salt." This could help us predict salt levels in advance, so that we can safely withdraw drinking water from rivers before they become undrinkable.