Galaxy intrinsic alignments induce a major astrophysical contamination to weak gravitational lensing measurements and need to be modelled and mitigated when extracting cosmological information from such measurements.

Promotor: A. Achúcarro Co-promotor: A. Boyarsky

Promotor: Prof.dr. J. Memelink

An overview of the research at the Cancer Dug Target Discovery group.

Can we enhance the capacity of host immune cells to kill mycobacteria via production of reactive nitrogen species?

We consider the propagation of electrical signals through nerve fibres.

The research described in this thesis combines the latest insights in lysosomal function with lysosome centred cell signalling.

PhD defence

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…

Across many decision-making tasks, people and animals systematically repeat (or alternate) their choices - even when the choices they make are intrinsically uncorrelated. This phenomenon (also known as 'sequential effect' or 'choice hysteresis') has been known for at least a century, and may be a stable…

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…

PURPOSE: In the present study we investigated the root-cause of an interference signal (100-200 nm) of sugar-containing solutions in dynamic light scattering (DLS) and nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA) and its consequences for the analysis of particles in biopharmaceutical drug products.

Bacterial chemosensory arrays are protein assemblies that are the key structural and functional component for motile bacteria to sense their internal or environmental chemical signals.

In this research group, headed by Prof. Erik Danen, the aim is to unravel cellular signaling mechanisms in normal and diseased cells, with a long-standing interest in cell adhesion signaling. In complex multicellular organisms such as ourselves, a division of labor emerges where different tissues and…

Promotor: B. van de Water

The main aim of this thesis was to unravel the signaling and regulatory networks that drive tumor cell migration during breast cancer metastasis.

In this article, Vanessa Newby, assistant professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, discusses credibility in peace operations. This article argues that credibility in peace operations must be built for both deterrence and cooperation purposes.

In this research group, headed by Bob Van de Water, cell signaling programs that underlie adverse drug reactions as well as cancer development and progression are unraveled. Adverse drug reactions involve cell injury in critical target organ cells which leads to the activation of cellular stress response…

PhD defence

Gold nanorods are biocompatible nanoparticles that present an excellent two-photon signal that can be used to get high spatial resolution inside living cells. Gold nanorods are photostable and therefore can be followed inside cells for long time, with possible applications as trackers in live cells.

In this work the reconstruction of a tau neutrino signal in the KM3NeT detector is discussed.

Promotor: J.M. Memelink

Developing computational algorithms for structural biology -A high resolution, three dimensional view of a molecule provides detailed information that help elucidate its function: by knowing the exact arrangement of atoms in a molecule, we can understand disease, develop drugs to combat them and improve…

Smartphone behaviors are so common but how does the brain generate this behavior? The Cognition in the digital environment laboratory (CODELAB) investigated the brain activity surrounding smartphone interactions with the help of Artificial Intelligence. According to their research, the brain fluidly…

Physics and Engineering Approaches to Biomedicine and Pharmacology

Mashaghi lab conducts research at the interface of physics, engineering and biomedicine. We develop and use theoretical and experimental approaches to address basic and applied research problems.

PhD defence

Quantum computers deserve their own quantum internet. This is a network that dispatches information not in the form of bits - ones and zeros - but rather as qubits, just like in the quantum computer itself. In the view of Dirk Bouwmeester, a professor in Leiden’s Quantum Matter & Optics research group,…

Lecture

All languages use melody in speech, primarily via rises and falls of the pitch of voice. Such pitch variation is pervasive, offering a wide spectrum of nuance to sentences – an additional layer of meaning. For example, saying “yes” with a rising pitch implies a question (rather than an affirmation).…

Parents may pass anxiety onto their offspring by exposing them to anxious behaviors in novel situations. Just as the parents’ anxious signals lead to anxiety, parents’ confident signals can ward off anxiety in the offspring. This project is seeking a new way to break anxiety transmission in the family…

Source: Mol Pharmacol, Volume 87, Issue 2, pp. 305-13 (2015)

We focus on a better understanding of the mechanisms of cancer drug resistance and metastasis.

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

Promotor: T. Schmidt, Co-Promotor: B.E. Snaar-Jagalska

The type-IV secretion system (T4SS) is a machinery able to transfer DNA and proteins between bacteria and in certain cases also to eukaryotic cells.

Prostate cancer (PCa) is one of the most prevalent cancer in males.

Nature, nurture and neural mechanisms of social emotion regulation in childhood

This dissertation derives from the development of tools for algorithmic composition which extract pitch materials from sound signals, analyzing them according to their timbral and harmonic properties, putting them into motion through diverse rhythmic and textural procedures.

In this thesis, we describe the latest advances in SQUID-detected Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy (MRFM).

Animal Sciences’ contributions to the Host-Microbe Interactions research theme focus on the interaction of animal hosts with pathogenic microbes but also the beneficial role of the gut microbiome.

Promotor: M. de Jong, Co-Promotor: Samtleben

To increase clinical success rate of drugs, a better understanding of drug action mechanism and disease dynamics is required. Metabolomics, which studies small molecules involved in biochemical processes in organisms, has shown to be a useful tool for this better understanding.

The Co-Align Conference 2023 will be held on 16 May 2023 at Leiden University.

In this thesis, a system pharmacology approach, integrating metabolomics, pharmacology and chemical biology, was applied to understand and modulate the endocannabinoid system across different model systems (cells, zebrafish, mice and humans).

Stimulating the vagus nerve, which provides a direct link between the gut and brain, makes people pay less attention to sad facial expressions. This research study by psychologists Katerina Johnson and Laura Steenbergen is published in the journal Neuroscience, and made it to the cover.