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

The molecular mechanisms that instigate a healthy cell to become malignant are fueled by (epi)genetic alterations in so-called driver genes.

The RNA guided endonuclease based on the CRISPR/Cas system of Streptococcus pyogenus is a potent new tool for genome engineering in plants.

Efficient gene-targeting during meiosis

In the last decades, activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) has emerged as a powerful chemical tool that may aid the ever-challenging drug discovery process.

Increasing the efficiency of gene targeting (GT) as a genome editing tool in plants has been an important goal in plant biotechnology.

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

How do mycobacteria subvert the defenses of host immune cells?

Promotores: A.H. Meijer, H.P. Spaink

Aspergillus niger is an important industrial producer of organic acids and enzymes producing large amounts of spent fungal biomass.

Promotor: P. J. J. Hooykaas Co-promotor: B. S de Pater

Is translocation of nucleases possible via Agrobacterium T4SS and is it efficient enough for mutagenesis?

Drug development is a time- and resource-consuming process that starts with the discovery and validation of a (protein) target that contributes to pathogenesis or disease progression.

This project is funded by the Dutch Cancer Society. The project will be part of an ongoing research line aimed at identifying mechanisms of cancer therapy resistance and metastasis. In this project, it will be investigated how the Grainyhead family of transcription factors controls therapy response…

Analysis of drug adversity

In this thesis, we used genetically engineered mouse models to identify genes and pathways that are involved in ILC formation and in the development of resistance to FGFR-targeted therapy.

PhD defence

Chemical tools to monitor drug-target engagement of endogenously expressed protein kinases are highly desirable for preclinical target validation in drug discovery. Here, we describe a chemical genetics strategy to selectively study target engagement of endogenous kinases.

Fungal food spoilage often starts with a contamination with spores. Experimental data strongly indicate the existence of subpopulations of spores with different levels of resistance to preservation methods.

The clinical potential of applying synthetic lethality to cancer treatment is famously demonstrated by the BRCA1/PARP1 paradigm: a tumor specific defect in BRCA1 – a component of the DNA double-strand break (DSB) repair pathway homologous recombination (HR) – results in a remarkable sensitivity to PARP1…

Exploring the mechanism of targeted nanoparticle-mediated drug delivery using the zebrafish model

The work described in this dissertation contributes to a better mechanistic understanding of nanoparticles in vivo. To achieve that goal, we used the zebrafish as a highly predictive pre-screening model of nanoparticles.

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…

Our DNA molecules are packaged by proteins in compact structures. The aim of this project is to understand how modern gene editing techniques nevertheless get access to their target in the DNA.

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?

Our research in the area of safety sciences aims to increase the mechanistic understanding of cellular toxicity of drugs and, in a broader sense, chemicals.

Science, Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL)

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…

PhD defence

Lecture

PhD defence

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has awarded Veni funding to seventeen researchers who recently obtained their PhD. This award offers promising young scientists the opportunity to develop their own ideas over a period of three years.

Lecture

Lecture, Van Leeuwenhoek Lecture on BioScience

The goal of hit discovery is to identify suitable chemical starting points to modulate a drug target. A hit can be, a.o., a small molecule, a protein or mRNA. Hit identification is performed via rational design, genome mining, (targeted) library screening, or in silico approaches.

Thomas Bakkum en Tom van der Wel, two PhD candidates from the Leiden Institute of Chemistry, have both won poster prizes at the EMBL Chemical Biology Conference 2018 in Heidelberg.

Science, Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL)

Science, Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR)

Ewine van Dishoeck was broadly covered in national and international media with her prestigious Kavli prize for astrophysics. She won 1 million dollars voor her groundbreaking work on star and planet formation and on extraterrestrial life.

The genomic DNA of every organism is organized and compacted in order to fit inside the cell. This is achieved by the joint action of numerous architectural proteins that aid in folding the genome. Genome folding is tightly interconnected with transcription, with genes in certain regions being silenced,…

It is the dream of Professor Susana Chuva de Sousa Lopes to grow fertile egg cells in the lab. But she says there is a long way to go in her discipline until that is possible. This is the message of her inaugural lecture on 29 June 2020, the first digital inaugural lecture at Leiden University.

Festival

A team led by Erik Danen from the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research has received a 3 million euros NWO Science Groot grant to unravel the first steps of metastasis. Danen will work together with biologists and theoretical and experimental physicists from Dutch Universities. ‘Understanding these…

Leiden chemists have developed a new technique with which they can determine the role of kinases – a group of proteins – in a living cell. This technique makes it easier to find new drug targets for diseases such as cancer and rheumatoid arthritis. The team published the findings in the journal Nature…

Lecture

Lecture

Lecture