We aim to engineer streptomycetes to fully exploit their potential for natural product productions, by a rational design and evolution approach.

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

Cardiovascular diseases are among the most frequent causes of death in the world. The main underlying pathology of cardiovascular diseases is the development of atherosclerosis in the medium and large-sized arteries.

The studies described in this thesis deal with glycosidases, in particular alpha-galactosidases.

The aim is to develop methods to assess environmental and occupational exposure to (individual) pesticides, to be applied in epidemiological studies investigating pesticide exposure and human health. Furthermore, we aim to investigate the potential association between exposure to pesticides and Parkinson’s…

Promotores: Prof.dr. J. Kuiper, Prof.dr. P.H.A. Quax

How can zebrafish models be used to gain a better understanding of host-pathogen interaction mechanisms and to screen new drugs for infectious disease treatment?

How can Staphylococcus aureus bacteria subvert the host immune system?

For a full overview of the publications of the Translational Immuno-Pharmacology group, visit the Google Scholar page.

How can cell wall engineering approaches be used to improve streptomycetes for industry to make new antibiotics?

Female and male songbirds sing equally elaborate songs in some species, but in others, females do not sing like males or not at all. How did such pronounced differences in male and female communication evolve?

We aim to unravel the complex and intertwining regulatory systems that control development and antibiotic production in streptomycetes.

TRANSAUTOPHAGY is a European COST action to promote multidisciplinary research on autophagy and translation of knowledge to applications.

According to the amyloid cascade hypothesis, accumulation of beta-amyloid (Aβ) peptides initiates the pathological cascade in Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Atherosclerosis is the main underlying pathology of cardiovascular disease. Atherosclerosis is caused by an immune response which is directed against (modified) lipoproteins which accumulate in the vessel wall.

RARE-NL, a new collaboration between university hospitals, hopes to find treatments for rare diseases. Professor Teun van Gelder is representing the LUMC in the initiative.

On 8 March, International Women’s Day, equal opportunities for women worldwide, empowerment, and gender equality take centre stage. For years, the role of women in the past has been nearly invisible. Four archaeologists reflect on this inequality of focus, from hunter-gatherers in the palaeolithic to…

We perform multidisciplinary research at molecular, cellular, and organismal levels of animal biology to increase fundamental understanding of health and disease.

When parking in reverse, your car skids off just a little, hitting the wall of the parking garage. On the car dashboard, a warning light immediately starts blinking. This technique from new cars can also be used for another purpose, namely in the treatment of Parkinson's disease patients.

Hans Ulrich Scherer is Professor of Rheumatology, in particular Translational Rheumatology. He wants to build bridges between research and clinical practice and between departments and organisations at home and abroad. Scherer will give his inaugural lecture next Friday. ‘To make progress, we have to…

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers from 15 departments at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) realised they could do more for patients if they joined forces. This is how the BEAT-COVID group has been able to rapidly gain knowledge about COVID-19, the role of the immune system and…

When mosquito eggs hatch in nutrient-rich water, the mosquitoes are larger and they can also fly further. That is the first conclusion of a study from by the Netherlands Centre for One Health (NCOH) by PhD-student Sam Boerlijst.

Fourteen bachelor’s and master’s students are representing Leiden University in this year’s International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM). Their plan: to create a kit that can be used to quickly identify infectious diseases in case of an outbreak.

We aim to develop a microfluidic platform that can parallelize testing the performance and characteristics of pure, mixed and environmental bacteriophage samples.

Patients with skin diseases such as eczema and psoriasis, sometimes spend a lifetime searching for the right medication. To help these patients faster and better, scientists across the country are joining forces. The Next Generation ImmunoDermatology (NGID) project, with LACDR professor Robert Rissmann…

A job thanks to COVID—something not many people can claim. But PhD candidate Vera Arntzen can. Over the past four years, she has mapped two crucial characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 infections. Thanks to her research, experts can now make well-informed decisions on matters like quarantine duration, which…

Lecture

At the division of BioTherapeutics, Amanda Foks, Bram Slütter and Ilze Bot have obtained a €4 million research grant from the HORIZON 2022 EIC Pathfinder Challenge “Cardiogenomics”, entitled “B-specific: B-cell related gene and protein markers with prognostic and therapeutic value for CVD”.

A central and much debated topic in the study of language acquisition concerns the nature of the learning mechanisms that are required. Are the computational and learning mechanisms that guide learning about language structure special and specific to language or humans?

Metabolic diseases are a burden on the European population and health care system. It is increasingly recognised that individual differences with respect to history, lifestyle, and genetic make-up affect disease progression and treatment response. A Systems Medicine approach, based on computational…

An e-coaching programme helps people with chronic kidney disease, particularly in areas that patients themselves want to work on. ‘A healthy lifestyle is important for patients with kidney disease: it can slow down the loss of kidney function and there will be fewer complications,’ Katja Cardol explains…

A vitamin D deficiency is often associated with smoggy English industrial cities during the Industrial Revolution, but research carried out on skeletons now suggests that the ‘English disease’ was also prevalent in rural areas of the Netherlands. Doctoral defence on 29 January.

During illness, the stiffness or viscosity of cells can change. Tom Evers demonstrated this by measuring such properties of human immune cells for the first time. ‘The stiffness of certain cells could be a way to make a diagnosis,’ Evers said. He defended his thesis on March 26th.

Detection of cerebral beta-amyloid (Abeta) by targeted contrast agents remains of great interest to aid the in vivo diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Bis-styrylbenzenes have been previously reported as potential Abeta imaging agents.

The skin protects the body from unwanted influences from the environment as well as excessive water loss. The barrier function of the skin is located in the stratum corneum (SC).

Acute cardiovascular clinical events such as myocardial infarction and cerebral stroke represent the major cause of death in Western societies. These pathologies are primarily resulting from atherosclerosis, a progressive condition characterized by the accumulation of lipids, immune cells, and fibrous…

Acute cardiovascular syndromes, including myocardial infarction or stroke, are the principal cause of death in the Western society. The main underlying pathology of cardiovascular diseases is atherosclerosis, which is caused by the accumulation of lipids and inflammatory cells in the vessel wall, in…

PhD defence

Do large deletions represent a risk during CRISP/CAS9-mediated genome editing in plants?

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 zebrafish research help understanding human diseases?

What is the role of auxin in the initiation and process of somatic embryogenesis?

In the MS Cognitietour, psychologists and neuroscientists from Leiden University discuss the latest scientific knowledge with MS patients and their loved ones. This leads to insights: 'One lady told how much stress she felt from all those caregivers around her bed.'

We aim to understand ion homeostasis in the model eukaryote S. cerevisiae.

As part of the NEXUS1492 project, this project will use ancient DNA techniques to shed new light on the demographic and health history of the Caribbean and the impact of European colonization on indigenous communities in the region.

How is inflammation in tuberculosis controlled by interplay between autophagy and inflammasome signalling?

The word ¨pyroptosis¨ can be understood as ¨fiery falling¨, which describes the bursting of pro-inflammatory signals from the dying cell. Our observations indicate that pyroptosis also ¨spreads like wildfire¨ and once a cell dies via pyroptotic cell death, neighbouring cells are more prone to die as…

The structure of bacterial cells provides crucial clues about their interaction with their host. What are the key structural features of a bacterial cell that determine pathogenicity? What roles do these structures play in the life cycle, and how do they change during the infection process?