The availability of complete plant genome sequences together with the ever increasing amount of data on the molecular, cellular and physiological mechanisms of plant development require mathematical and computational models to obtain a complete overview of and generate new insights into the quantitative…

How can we manipulate the biotic and abiotic environment to increase thrips resistance in tomato and chrysanthemum? More specifically we ask: How can plant secondary metabolites that are not soluble in water be delivered to plants in seed coating or root dipping treatment? Can bacteria be used to…

The mission of the Plant Science research programme is to contribute to the sustainable production of high quality crops, flowers and high-value bio-based products. This is realised by generating fundamental knowledge of basic biological processes related to development of plants and their interaction…

What are the genes and molecular mechanisms involved in bacteria-mediated plant drought tolerance?

Plant-microbe interaction resulted in different physio/chemical responses by host plant and interacting rhizobacteria.

In our lives we often have little attention or appreciation for plants, let alone the ones we commonly call weeds. This inattention for plants has been described as plant blindness. The Stoepplantjes project aspires to decrease plant blindness by changing the image of weeds and using citizen science.…

Which microorganisms live near and inside plant roots? How do they contribute to plant health? Can microorganisms be employed in plant protection?

Identification and characterization of components of DNA repair pathways and their role in Agrobacterium T-DNA integration and repair of CRISPR/Cas induced DSBs.

Efficient gene-targeting during meiosis

Which genes are involved in woodiness and associated traits such as drought tolerance, flowering time, stem elongation, life span, and plant herbivory, and how do these gene regulatory pathways overlap?

Promotores: T.H.W. Bäck, A. Plaat, Co-promotor: F.J. Verbeek

The human body consists of hundreds, perhaps thousands of different types of cells, each with different morphologies and functions, despite having the same genome.

How is Pol θ responsible for T-DNA integration, and how do other DNA double-strand break repair pathways interact with Pol θ? How may we manipulate T-DNA integration to stimulate error-free integration at a predetermined genomic site?

This thesis describes the functional analysis of the Arabidopsis AHL15 gene.

Biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) for natural products are widespread in microbial genomes, and they are rapidly exchanged. This research assesses the factors that control the spread of BGCs and resistance genes in nature. This includes risk assessment for the spread of engineered DNA in nature.

Salicylic acid (SA) is a plant hormone, which is involved in the defense responses to pathogens and to abiotic stress, and in the regulation of plant growth and development.

A three-volume standard work on galls in Europe. Author Johannes C. (Hans) Roskam is associate professor emeritus in Evolutionary Biology and currently guest at Leiden University.

We examine how soil-derived legacy effects of plants structure natural ecosystems, determine aboveground plant insect interactions, and how we can use soil legacy effects to restore degraded ecosystems.

John van Noort

The HARVEST project explores the dietary choices that our hominin ancestors and relatives made, by recovering information on what they consumed, and how factors like environmental variation, intrinsic biology, and development of food processing technologies could have influenced their decisions.

The mission of the Plant Sciences cluster is to contribute to the sustainable production of high-quality crops, flowers and high-value bio-based products, and to contribute to the maintenance and restoration of biodiversity in natural ecosystems. This is realised by generating fundamental knowledge…

PhD at Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens - France

Wetland plants are distinguished from plants of other terrestrial ecosystems by their adaptations to specific habitat stresses, including waterlogged and flooding and the subsequent abundance of phytotoxic compounds.

Plant exudates appeared long time ago in the history line of life in the early Devonian. They are typical saps produced by specialized cells.

How do plants lure microscopically small 'support teams' into their roots for protection against diseases? And what functions are activated in the microbes and the plants?

What plants grow along ditches in the Leiden region? What does this say about vegetation quality? Could it be better? Naturalis and Leiden University's Center for Environmental Sciences are looking for your help to answer these questions.

Harvesting rice from the same field, without planting new rice plants? A discovery may bring this scenario closer. Leiden scientists have discovered a gene that allows annual plants to grow after flowering, instead of dying. Publication on 13 April in Nature Plants.

Our focus is to optimize the fungal cell wall to both increase chitin production and chitin extractability.

What are key regulators of plant ageing that can reverse ageing in plants (rejuvenation), and how can we use this knowledge to improve crop plants?

Tracking early human behaviour through plant processing and -exploitation.

How is vegetative development regulated in plants and how does this affect a plant’s life history strategy?

Basketry, cordage and textiles made of plant fibers or bark are rarely preserved in the archaeological record. By means of experimental archaeology and microwear analysis, we obtain indirect evidence about this important craft.

Leiden biologists have shown that a gene present in plants, animals and yeasts does play an important role in plants, although for years the gene was considered unimportant. It turns out the gene plays a crucial role in the development of vascular tissue in plants. Publication in Nature Plants on 11…

The Plant BioDynamics Lab (PBDL) is a laboratory dedicated to experiments designed to develop and validate quantitative mathematical models of dynamical processes in biology. The principal objective of developing these models is to make quantitative predictions about these processes.

In this thesis, the role of plant-mediated soil legacy effects in shaping aboveground plant-insect interactions was investigated.

Just like us, plants also produce growth hormones, and they also go through an ageing process. The study of the genes and mechanisms behind these processes is useful not only for crop breeding and agriculture, but also for medical research. That is the view held by Professor of Plant Developmental Genetics…

Plant Sciences' contribution to the Evolution & Biodiversity research theme is to understand what are the key drivers of plant biodiversity during evolution with a focus on plant life history and resilience traits and develop tools to restore and maintain plant biodiversity.

Plant Sciences' contribution to the Bioactive Molecules research theme is to identify new plant bioactive molecules, and unravel their mechanisms of action in plant development or health, and the regulatory networks and (bio)synthetic pathways required for their production.

Biodiversity enables ecosystems to thrive through the synergy of functional differences among organisms. While human well-being strongly depends on biodiversity-driven ecosystem services, human actions are also at the root of current unprecedented biodiversity declines.

Plant Sciences' contribution to the Development & Disease research theme is to unravel the processes that allow plants to adapt to changing abiotic and biotic environmental conditions or stresses, with the aim to contribute to the sustainable production of food, flowers and bio-based products using…

Promotor: Prof.dr. E.F. Smets, Co-promotor: T.R. van Andel

Soil biodiversity is of great importance for the maintenance of multifunctionality in terrestrial ecosystems.

In this project, we will study the genetic and environmental drivers of woodiness and stem lignification at the level of plant‐to‐gene‐to‐molecule.

Supervisor: P.J.J. Hooykaas Co-Supervisor: R. Offringa

The Hortus botanicus Leiden has one of Europe’s largest collections of living plants from the Asian region. This rich resource is no longer the sole domain of botanists. Extraordinary professor Paul Kessler studies what the Hortus botanicus Leiden can offer research, higher education and the public…

The objective of this study was to investigate the expression and function of GRHL2 in different breast cancer subtypes.

Plants are colonized by an astounding number of microorganisms that can provide different life-support functions, including nutrient acquisition and protection against (a)biotic stresses like drought or pathogen attack.

Plant architecture has distinct forms in different plant species, but also within a species the finalarchitecture of a plant is determined by its gradual development and changes therein induced by environmental conditions during the plant’s life cycle.

The bacterial cell wall is a nearly universal structure that offers protection and gives the cell its shape. However, environmental stressors, such as cell wall-targeting antibiotics and hyperosmotic conditions, can induce bacteria to shift to a wall-deficient state. It is unknown whether the lack of…