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Glycosidases are important enzymes in the turnover of polysaccharides and glycoconjugates, and are involved in a range of human pathologies including genetic disorders such as Gaucher and Pompe disease, but also in various cancers.

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.

This thesis is a collection of experimental attempts to enhance photoluminescence of fluorescent molecules and quantum dots with single gold nanorods (GNRs) and relevant applications.

Promotores: G.W. Canters, T.J. Aartsma

This thesis aims to improve the detection from ultra-weak single emitter by enhancing their emission properties with plasmonic nanostructures. We exploit the wet-chemically synthesized single crystalline gold nanorods (GNRs) as our basic frameworks in the whole studies, simply because of their unique…

PURPOSE: To monitor the biodistribution of IgG1 aggregates upon subcutaneous (SC) and intravenous (IV) administration in mice and measure their propensity to stimulate an early immune response.

PhD Defence

A team of surgeons at Leiden University Medical Center and the Centre for Human Drug Research have removed a lung tumour that they pinpointed using fluorescence. This is the first time that this technique has been used in Europe in a patient with a lung tumour.

Promotor: T. Schmidt

The Microscopy Unit houses, maintains and coordinates most of the microscopy equipment of the IBL. The available equipment ranges from conventional light and fluorescence microscopes, to confocal laser scanning and electron microscopes. In addition, infrastructure is available for histology, including…

Promotor: Prof.dr. M.A.G.J. Orrit

PhD Defence

Can chemical safety assessment be improved with zebrafish embryo-based reporter assays?

Glycosidases are essential in fundamental biological processes and are responsible for the degradation of most (oligo)saccharides, glycolipids and glycoproteins.

PhD Defence

PhD Defence

This is a yearly event where we move in one week from the physics of light through the composition of the microscope, fluorescence microscopy and end up with some image analysis All the lectures are backed by practicals to really put your obtained knowledge into practice

To this day, all cyclophellitol-based inhibitors and ABPs have been close analogues of their natural substrate counterparts. As a result, these probes showed high selectivity towards their target glycosidases.

Promotores: Prof.dr. H. S. Overkleeft, Prof.dr. G. A. van der Marel

Control of Living Cells by Magnetic Fluorescent Nanoparticles

Deficiency of glucocerebrosidase (GBA) underlies Gaucher disease, a common lysosomal storage disorder. Carriership for Gaucher disease has recently been identified as major risk for parkinsonism. Presently, no method exists to visualize active GBA molecules in situ. We here report the design, synthesis…

Promotores: Prof.dr. H.S. Overkleeft, Prof.dr. G.A. van der Marel

Lecture

This is a facility where research groups or small companies can apply for space if they need to culture human or animal cells.

Single-molecule spectroscopy has become a powerful method for using organic fluorescent molecules in numerous applications.

Optical detection of a single electron using a single molecule has never been done. Leiden physicist Michel Orrit and his team have now identified a molecule that is sensitive enough to detect an electron at a distance of hundreds of nanometers. The results are published as a cover article in ChemPh…

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Activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) is a functional proteomics technique for directly monitoring the expression of active enzymes in cell extracts and living cells. The technique relies on irreversible inhibitors equipped with reactive groups (warheads) that covalently attach to the active site…

Chapter 2 describes a post-synthetic methodology to introduce a fluorescent label in highly lipophilic, Pam3Cys based conjugates.

Spatially and Tempoprally Defined Microfluidics to Control Chemotactic Cells

How do macrophages and neutrophils contribute to metastatic onset?

PhD Defence

Leiden physicists have managed to detect a single molecule called dibenzoterrylene in a new crystal, and found that it is a candidate component for a quantum network. Future quantum computers will need such a network to work together while maintaining their advantages. Publication in ChemPhysChem jo…

Our facilities cover:

PhD Defence

PhD Defence

Promotor: Prof.dr. T. Schmidt, Co-Promotor: Dr. ir. S.J.T. van Noort

How can you use robots and automatic recognition of microscopic images to test the effect of drugs exceptionally quickly?

Formulation of biopharmaceuticals

Can we build a biosensor to detect neuroblastoma markers in urine using the chemotaxis system in E. coli?

Establishing human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) CRISPR-Cas9-based fluorescent reporter cell lines for NF-kB signalling. We will use this to enable studying the dynamic activation and downstream signalling of Toll-like receptor and cytokine signalling in iPSC-derived differentiated cells in a…

How can zebrafish research help to understand and fight human cancer?

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…

Cellular stress response pathways are activated upon exposure to chemicals and help organisms deal with various molecular dangers (e.g. oxidative stress). When these pathways become hyper-activated an adverse response takes place and cells die, which may lead to organism-level toxicity such as drug-induced…

Promotor: Prof.dr. B. van de Water, Co-promotor: E.H.J. Danen

Our group operates at the cross-roads of different disciplines: molecular and cellular microbiology, biochemistry, structural biology and biophysics. The group harbors expertise in a multitude of molecular and cellular approaches including:

For effective cancer immunotherapy by vaccination, co-delivery of tumour antigens and adjuvants to dendritic cells and subsequent activation of antigen-specific cytotoxic T cells (CTLs) is crucial. In this study, a synthetic long peptide (SLP) harbouring the model CTL epitope SIINFEKL was encapsulated…