1,705 search results for “synthetische biologie” in the Public website
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alpine newts did not travel to the Netherlands themselves
Leiden biology students have determined the origin of exotic alpine newts in the Netherlands using a special DNA technique.
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Untangling the Evolution of a Balanced Lethal System
Ben Wielstra strives to unravel the evolution of balanced lethal systems. On 1 February he started his own lab at the Institute of Biology Leiden. Wielstra is one of five researchers at Leiden University who has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant in 2018 by the European Research Council. ERC Starting…
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Students hunting for breakthrough in antibiotics resistance
Bacteria that fluoresce green, blue or red may play a role in combatting resistance against antibiotics. Under the motto of 'Say yes to stress', thirteen ambitious Leiden students are aiming to amass 9,000 euros to carry out their research project.
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Area studies of the Minor Sustainable Development in four countries
Every January, students of the Minor Sustainable Development have the opportunity to put what they’ve learned over the last few months into practice in a choice of exciting and practical courses called Area Studies. This year, for the first time, there was a choice of four locations: The Netherlands,…
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Stiffness and viscosity of cells differ in cancer and other diseases
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.
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Stans Prize 2018 for Louie Krol
The ‘Stans Prize 2018' (for the best thesis, report or article produced by a CML student) has been awarded to Louie Krol. Other CML prizes were awarded to Sebastiaan Deetman and Joris Timmermans.
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New Science assessor is ready to bring on change
Initiatives like the Leiden University Green Office and the Career Service might not sound familiar to every student. If it is up to Bernice, this will change from this academic year.
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Big steps forward in reducing the carbon footprint
E-mails are not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about sustainability. Yet, your e-mails can add kilos of extra CO2 to the atmosphere each year. Students from the LDE Bachelor Honours Programme Sustainability tackled these and other sustainability challenges on behalf of partner organisations.…
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Evolution of bacterial movement revealed
An international team with researchers from Leiden revealed how a bacterium repurposed an internal system to control its movements. Movement control is very important in host invasion, which can lead to disease. Publication on 27 April in Nature Communications.
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Seven new Medical Delta professors
Medical Delta has appointed seven professors who will bridge the medical worlds of Leiden, Delft and Rotterdam.
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‘How can we translate the language of cells into cancer therapies?’
On 23 April 2021, Professor Alfred Vertegaal from the Department of Cell and Chemical Biology at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) delivered his inaugural lecture ‘Unraveling and exploiting cellular communication codes’. Vertegaal used the opportunity to describe how research in the field…
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Leiden Honorary Doctorates for Melissa Little and Robbert Dijkgraaf
Australian cell biologist Melissa Little and Dutch physicist Robbert Dijkgraaf will each be awarded an Honorary doctorate at the Dies Natalis of Leiden University in February 2019. They are receiving these awards for their services to science.
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EL CID: enthusiastic start for first-years and mentors!
EL CID has started! This is the week when new students have the chance to get to know the city and student life. Some of the mentors and first-years introduce themselves.
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Young babies laugh like apes
Young babies laugh like adult apes do: producing sounds while inhaling and exhaling. Adult humans produce sounds on the exhale only. Cognitive psychologist Mariska Kret and colleagues have published an article about the development of human laughter in the journal Biology Letters.
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Snake venom glands grown in lab
For the first time, researchers were able to grow organoids from snake venom glands. The lab-grown 3-D structures can produce snake venom molecules. This is a major step in finding treatments to tackle snakebite, which causes over 100,000 deaths each year. Publication in top journal Cell.
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Cognitive tool for the swamp
Fred Janssen is curious about how best to teach students and students to gain a good understanding of complex ‘swamp situations’. This is the subject of his inaugural lecture as Professor of Science Education at the ICLON and the Faculty of Science. Inaugural address 19 June 2017.
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How mammoth poop contributes to antibiotics research
PhD student Doris van Bergeijk brought 40,000-year-old bacteria from mammoth poop back to life. She hopes to find new information that can help research at the Institute of Biology Leiden into antibiotics and antibiotics resistance. Read about it on European Antibiotic Awareness Day, 18 November.
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Land van Ons and Leiden University start cooperation in peat meadow area in Oud Ade
Land van Ons, a cooperation that buys agricultural land for the restoration of biodiversity and landscape, and Leiden University join forces. Together, they will investigate over a longer period of time which agricultural management leads to the best restoration of biodiversity. The research will start…
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New light on innate plant immunity
Plants are able to resist a pathogen’s attack by a dual innate immune system. The relationship between the two pathways was not clear, but it turns out that they mutually potentiate each other, as assistant professor Pingtao Ding (Institute of Biology Leiden) and colleagues (The Sainsbury Laboratory,…
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Pascal Professor 2015
In 2015 the Pascalchair of the Faculty of Science, Universiteit Leiden and in particular of Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science, is held by Prof. Dr. Natasa Jonoska, University of South Florida, Tampa, USA.
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Tropical bananaquits lose song quality in the city
I think we should go this way. This way! THIS! WAY!! Making yourself heard in a city can be difficult. That is not only the case for humans, but birds seem to be hindered by urban noise as well. Researcher Hans Slabbekoorn of Leiden University already showed that great tits in Leiden communicate differently…
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Fungi add flavour to vanilla
Fungi living in vanilla plants play a role in the development of the taste and smell of vanilla, according to Shahnoo Khoyratty of the Institute of Biology Leiden. PhD defence on 27 October.
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Four bold Faculty of Science researchers receive NWO XS grants
Four scientists from the Faculty of Science will receive a grant of up to 50,000 euros in the Open Competition Domain Science - XS from science financier NWO. This category emphatically strives to encourage curiosity-driven and bold research involving a relatively quick analysis of a promising idea.…
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Canal Cups project 59th in Trouw newspaper’s Sustainable 100
Canal Cups, Auke-Florian Hiemstra and Liselotte Rambonnet’s project to rid Leiden of disposable plastic cups and its canals of litter, has taken 59th place in Trouw newspaper’s Top 100 sustainable initiatives.
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‘Don’t ever discriminate yourself by any gender-related label’
Iranian molecular plant biologist Salma Balazadeh started her career in Germany. Now she sets up a research group in Leiden to study stress in plants to secure global food supply. Her outlook on women in science in the context of the International Day for Women and Girls in Science, 11 February.
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ERC Synergy Grant to unlock sugar codes for health and a sustainable society
Hermen Overkleeft and his colleagues Gideon Davies (University of York) and Carme Rovira (University of Barcelona) will receive a 9.1 million euros Synergy Grant from the European Research Council. Together, they will form the Carbocentre Synergy team for research into enzymes that work on glycans:…
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A unique defence: Bacteria lose cell wall in the presence of virus
Bacteria temporarily live without their cell wall if dangerous viruses are near. A remarkable feature, as the cell wall is a sturdy barrier against threats. Still, the discovery has a logical explanation ánd might be of a consequence for fighting pathogenic bacteria, according to Véronique Ongenae,…
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Spitting cobra leads to Science publication
Spitting cobra venom composition has been influenced by defensive behaviour according to an international research team. This may have originated from the arrival of human ancestors. Students at the Institute of Biology Leiden made an important contribution to the study. Publication in Science on 22…
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PhD candidate from Leiden presents international student event
From pipetting in the lab to shining in front of the camera at a global student event. With 8.000 viewers watching the livestream, Marjolein Crooijmans presented the iGEM Giant Jamboree in Paris.
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Are bacteriophages the new antibiotics?
Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, may be used as an alternative treatment option when antibiotics fail. Leiden researchers have studied the structure and function of a novel bacteriophage that could be used to treat one of the WHO bacterial strains of concern where new treatments are urgently…
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The biologist who wants to sound a different note in his field
Hans Slabbekoorn researches animal sounds and the effect of the noise we humans make on these animals. He is also committed to making his discipline more diverse.
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Disrupted movement makes macrophages more lethal to tuberculosis bacteria
Macrophages – the front line of our immune system – protect us from infections. But in the case of the tuberculosis bacteria, this often goes wrong. The group of Annemarie Meijer from the Leiden Institute of Biology has now discovered that macrophages in zebrafish are better able to eliminate tuberculosis…
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Gravitation Grant: more than twenty million for sustainable crops
The project MiCRop receives 20.3 million euros from the Gravitation programme of the Dutch Research Council (NWO). MiCRop will unravel the microbial community around crops. This knowledge will help to develop more sustainable crops that require fewer fertilizers and pesticides. Leiden professors Jos…
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Leiden researchers visualise the 'guardian of our genome’
The guardian of our genome, the protein MutS, scans the DNA for spelling errors and makes sure they are corrected. An essential process for our health. Researchers at Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) have discovered precisely how this protein works by making MutS visible with cryo-electron microscopy.…
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Mathematical model helps to explain the formation of spine and ribs
Mathematical biologists from Leiden have developed a model that helps to explain how the spine and vertebrae, among other things, form during embryonic development. The same process, the other way around, plays a key role in cancer metastasis. Publication in iScience.
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Correcting each other’s mistakes - why cells stuck together in early evolution
The transition from single cells to multicellular organisms was a key step in evolution. Researchers from Leiden and Amsterdam developed a mathematical model that explains how this transition may have come about. They suspect cooperating cells may correct each other’s mistakes. Publication in eLife…
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How cells talk by pulling on a fibre network
Mechanics play a larger role in blood vessel formation, and other developmental biology, than previously thought. Cells appear to respond to mechanical signals, such as pressure. Through the extracellular matrix, a network of fibrous proteins, cells can supposedly exchange those mechanical signals over…
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Student hauls in NWO grant for research into 'rejuvenating gene'
Master's student Thalia Luden receives an NWO grant for her research proposal about a gene that brings flowering plants back into a growth phase. Companies in floriculture and vegetable seed breeding also contribute to the research.
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New zebrafish study to understand human cancer
Ewa Snaar-Jagalska, Shuning He and colleagues from IBL, LION and LACDR reported on a new zebrafish study to understand micrometastasis of human cancer cells. They discovered a novel role for neutrophils in assisting metastasis formation, which provides critical insights for anti-cancer therapies.
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Cells ‘walk’ to firm ground
A new mathematical model may explain how body cells get their shapes and what makes them move within a tissue. The model provides fundamental knowledge for applications in tissue engineering, amongst other things. Publication in open-access journal iScience.
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Corona waste kills animals throughout the entire world
Face masks and gloves designed to protect us are, in fact, dangerous for the animals around us. Scientists from Leiden warn that throughout the world, on land and in the water, animals are ingesting corona waste, or getting entangled in it. The two biologists are asking for everybody’s help to better…
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Gravitation Grant for innovative outlook on the social and ethical challenges of new technology
Leading scientists in the field of the ethics and philosophy of technology are currently revising time-honoured key philosophical concepts such as autonomy, justice and responsibility, as these concepts are being challenged as a result of new technological developments. They receive 17.9 million euros…
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Human Frontier Science Program award for Katharina Riebel
An international research team consisting of Katharina Riebel as leading PI and two international collaborators were awarded a Human Frontier Science Program grant for their proposal ‘Seeing voices’: the role of multimodal cues in vocal learning.
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Spinoza Prize for Leiden cell biologist, immunologist and chemist Sjaak Neefjes
Sjaak Neefjes, Professor of Chemical Immunology at Leiden University, will receive the NWO Spinoza Prize this year. The Spinoza Committee called Neefjes an ‘exceptional researcher whose intelligence is matched by his boldness’. He will use the 2.5 million euro prize to pursue his research into cancer…
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DNA as a supramolecular building block
PhD student Willem Noteborn has investigated supramolecular structures. These can be useful for the loading of medicines and signalling molecules regarding, for example, cellular differentiation. In his thesis, he describes the functioning of these structures.
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Revolutionizing plant protection strategies: Ding lab receives 2.4M grant to investigate plant immunity
Plant biologist Pingtao Ding, assistant professor at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), has received a 2.4 million European grant from the European Research Council (ERC). This ERC Starting Grant for promising young researchers allows him to unravel the molecular mechanisms by which plants resist…
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No humans needed: Neanderthals possibly responsible for their own extinction
Scientists remain puzzled by the sudden extinction of Neanderthals, some 40,000 years ago. New research by scientists from Eindhoven University of Technology, Leiden University and Wageningen University now suggests we might have been too quick in attributing the demise of Neanderthals to invasions…
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Magnifying the minute
Making all those things we normally cannot see visible is the challenge that fascinates Fons Verbeek, Leiden's new Professor of Computational Bio-Imaging. Contributions from chemistry, optics and in particular computational sciences to making and processing these images give greater insight into the…
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Reedijk Symposium 2015 - Guest Lecturers: Prof. Bas de Bruin & Prof. Dame Carol Robinson
On Friday October 30th 2015 the sixth annual Jan Reedijk Symposium will be held. The main lectures of the day will be
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Back to Faculty with Nikie Veld
Nikie Veld is an education coordinator at Biology. Her job now mainly revolves around getting students back to the Faculty. ‘In the corona era, we were constantly rearranging the timetables.’