‘Microscopy is by far the least understood, most inefficiently operated, and the most abused of all laboratory instruments,’ reads the quote on the office wall of microscopy unit supporters Joost Willemse en Gerda Lamers. It describes exactly why the two developed the microscopy course for starting…

Biophysicist Alireza Mashaghi and his collaborators are taking up the fight against muscular dystrophy: genetic disorders that cause muscle weakness. They want to inhibit the clumping of proteins that results in toxic aggregates. For this, the team receives 550,000 euros from Health Holland. The team…

On February 2nd the book Beelden zonder weerga appears, written by professor in science history Dirk van Delft and biochemist Ton van Helvoort. They describe the rich history of electron microscopy, which comes to a conclusion in the final chapter with the current state-of-the-art ESCHER microscope…

In this thesis, the focus lies on studying glucocorticoid receptor dynamics in living cells with the aim of understanding how this transcription factor finds its DNA target sites to regulate transcription.

Bacteria are everywhere. They are the most abundant organisms on earth and impact all aspects of our lives. They determine our health and shape our environment. Ariane Briegel, professor of Ultrastructural Biology, freezes bacteria super fast to gain a true-to-nature image of the internal and external…

In this thesis, bioorthogonal chemistry is combined with correlative light-electron microscopy to selectively label and study pathogenic intracellular bacteria within the host immune cell.

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.…

The High Troughput Microscopy Dutch Flagship Node that includes the Leiden Cell Observatory Screening platform is now officially ratified as a Euro-BioImaging (EuBI) Node Candidate

How can novel bioimaging technologies and vertebrate model species be used to gain a better understanding of early cellular behaviours with the ultimate goal to increase our understanding of human development and disease processes?

A consortium of researchers from the Leiden Institute of Physics (LION), the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), and the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC) received a FOM program grant to develop a novel way of studying individual proteins inside a cell using gold nanorods.

The research in this thesis is focused on tomographic reconstruction based on two imaging modalities in electron microscopy.

Ariane Briegel, Professor of Ultrastructural biology in Leiden, has received a prestigious incentive from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. With the grant of 800,000 euros, Briegel will set up a new research line into studying symbiotic interactions on the nanoscale.

Promotor: Prof.dr. J.W.M. Frenken

This thesis focuses on using liposomes in two different treatment strategies; vaccination (or immunotherapy) and delivery of a small molecule, and in two different disease models; cancer and atherosclerosis.

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.

There is an urgent need for more physiologically relevant cell culture methods to guide compound selection in pre-clinical stages of the drug development pipeline.

Science, Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL)

Science, Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL)

Research groups in the Biological & Soft Matter Programme unravel mechanisms in biological processes and develop novel bio-inspired soft materials.

This thesis describes a study from both a theoreticaL and an experimental point of view.

Promotor: J.W.M. Frenken

Science, Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL)

Physicist Daniël Geelen has developed a new microscope that uses low-energy electrons. Those are less harmful to biological and organic materials. Geelen defends his PhD thesis on May 31st.

Festival

Tackling key challenges of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry to aid drug discovery is one of the focus areas of Leiden University. To this end, the Leiden Early Drug Discovery & Development network (LED3) was established by the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC), the Institute of Biology Leiden…

There are several training oportunities within the cell observatory

Science, Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC)

The goal of hit and lead optimization is to optimize suitable chemical starting points that can modulate a drug target. The methods and technologies used are similar to those in Hit Discovery, but once the compound has shown activity in an animal model, it moves from 'hit' to 'lead.'

Course

The CIGR brings together a diverse range of unique expertise in genome research rooted in biology, chemistry and physics. Members of the CIGR investigate genome folding and genome transactions. An important aspect is direct as well as long term relevance for medicine. The available expertise extends…

A new executive board has been installed at NeCEN, a state-of-the art facility that offers the most advanced cryo-electron microscopes worldwide. The new board members are full of excitement: what are their ideas for the future of the facility?

Prof. Dr. Ir. Marin van Heel, Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Biology Leiden (NeCEN), is one of the winners of the “Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences 2017”. This annual award is presented to recognize contributions that have opened new fields of research or have advanced concepts in a particular…

NL-BioImaging AM is a distributed research infrastructure aimed at promoting progress in the most cutting edge microscopy technologies and providing open access to these technologies to a broad community of academic and industrial users. All Netherlands bio(medical) microscopy centers participate.

STM scanning experiments on poorly conducting materials are challenging, and can cause a distortion effect. A new model corrects for this effect, allowing physicists to better study materials in their quest to understand unconventional superconductivity. Publication in Physical Review B as Editor’s…

Multidrug-resistant pathogens and worldwide pandemics are increasing, making infectious diseases more prevalent. To develop new treatments, deeper knowledge of the interaction between bacteria and human cells is required. Ariane Briegel recently became a Medical Delta professor and studies such path…

The Phase 3 clinical trial results of the promising Covid-19 vaccine of Johnson & Johnson are expected this month. The Dutch electron microscopy facility NeCEN helped develop the company’s vaccine, and they have now published their scientific findings in Nature Communications.

In most applications, electrocatalysts exhibit a large surface area to volume ratio, for example using nanoparticles.

In this thesis, time-lapse fluorescent microscopy plays a pivotal role in investigating functional materials within living cells as well as the migratory behaviour of neural progenitor cells.

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.

Three projects with Leiden researchers are to receive a subsidy from NWO for the construction or renovation of large-scale research facilities. They will be working on electron microscopy, an X-omics initiative and an X-ray telescope. The projects are part of the National Roadmap for Large-Scale Scientific…

Core Facilities are shared resources that provide access to instruments, technologies and services to researchers across the Institute of Biology. They are staffed by scientists with vast experience in their field, ensuring that all researchers can count not only on the latest available technology…