In summary, the collective results described in this thesis show that nanoparticulate vaccines can be delivered intradermally by coated and hollow microneedles and evoke antigen-specific immune responses.

Transcutaneous vaccination is attractive because it is non- or minimally invasive, pain free and the site of administration (skin) is easily accessible. What’s more, transcutaneous immunization can lead to a strong immune response owing to the presence of immune-competent cells in the skin.

Traditionally, vaccines are administered intramuscularly using conventional hypodermic needles, which cause pain and distress. Microneedles are very short needles (smaller than 1 mm) that are practically invisible to the naked eye.

PURPOSE: The aim of the study was to develop a cheap and fast method to produce hollow microneedles and an applicator for injecting vaccines into the skin at a pre-defined depth and test the applicability of the system for dermal polio vaccination.

If it’s up to PhD student Guangsheng Du, patients don’t need to worry about big needles anymore. At the Leiden Academic Center for Drug Research (LACDR), he studied the use of microneedles and nanoparticles as a new vaccination system. ‘I want to create a more patient-friendly delivery method.’ He defends…

PhD Defence

Promotores: Prof.dr. J. A. Bouwstra, Prof.dr. W. Jiskoot

Microneedles are needle-like structures long enough to pierce the upper layer of the skin (stratum corneum), that is a major barrier to intradermal drug delivery. Microneedles are also short enough to reduce the stimulation of nerves in the dermis and thus evading the generation of the pain sensatio…

Microneedles represent promising tools for delivery of drugs to the skin. However, before these microneedles can be used in clinical practice, it is essential to understand the process of skin penetration by these microneedles.

Key publications of the Skin Barrier and Vaccination group.

In the literature, several types of microneedles have been extensively described. However, porous microneedle arrays only received minimal attention. Hence, only little is known about drug delivery via these microneedles. However, porous microneedle arrays may have potential for future microneedle-based…

Microneedle-based vaccination has several advantages over vaccination by using conventional hypodermic needles.

Current research at the Skin Barrier and Vaccination group.

Pim Schipper has won the third prize for his oral presentation during the tenth biennial meeting of the Globalization of Pharmaceutics Education Network (GPEN), which was held from 27 – 30 Aug 2014 at the University of Helsinki, Finland.

The aim of this work was to study the applicability of antigen-coated pH-sensitive microneedle arrays for effective vaccination strategies. Therefore, a model antigen (ovalbumin) was coated onto pH-sensitive (pyridine-modified) microneedle arrays to test pH-triggered antigen release by applying the…

Microneedles are a promising tool for the painless administration of vaccines through the skin. But, are these minuscule needles really effective? PhD student Pim Schipper of the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research investigated various factors of vaccination via the skin and discovered, among other…

Tuberculosis is an infectious disease which is spreaded through the air. It is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis and it led 1.7 million people to death in 2016. This mortarlity rate is concentrated in developing countries such as Indonesia, Philippines, Pakistan, and South Africa. These numbers make…

The Skin Barrier and Vaccination group is led by Prof. Joke Bouwstra. One of the key functions of the skin is its barrier function, which is located in the uppermost layer of the skin, the stratum corneum. The stratum corneum consists of enucleated dead cells (corneocytes) embedded in a lipid matrix.…

Source: The AAPS journal, Volume 16, Issue 4, pp. 681-684 (2014)

Tuberculosis (TB) is a major global health problem caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). In 2015, there were estimated to be 10.4 million new cases and 1.8 million deaths ascribed to TB, making it one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide. Unfortunately, the only current registered…

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the pathogen causing tuberculosis (TB), is the leader among all pathogens responsible for the most human deaths today and it is considered as one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide. There is an increasing occurrence of multidrug-resistant and even totally drug-resistant…

Promotores: Prof.dr. G.F.A Kersten, Prof dr. J.A. Bouwstra

Promotor: A. Kros

PhD Defence

Promotor: Roeland M.H. Merks

Our research is aimed at a smoother and speedier transition from preclinical research to pharmacological interventions, and the delivery of drugs in the human body by use of small molecules and biologics.

Ilina Georgieva published an article in the journal Contemporary Security Policy on the norm-setting role of intelligence agencies.

Liposomes hold great promise for peptide-based personalized cancer vaccination, especially when administered intradermally. However, current liposome preparation methods are very time consuming (resulting in long development times per formulation), whereas personalized cancer vaccination requires very…

Vaccination via the skin or the mucosae

Bachelor’ student mathematics and physics Martijn de Jong used mathematics to unravel a complex biological process called gastrulation. He combined various scientific disciplines. ‘It is nice to work at the interface between different fields.’

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On an apparently normal cube a pattern of hollows and bulges appears when the cube is compressed. A method has been developed to design such three-dimensional structures and to construct these using simple building blocks. Publication in Nature.

The research conducted at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research is clustered within the divisions of BioTherapeutics, Drug Discovery & Safety and Systems Biomedicine and Pharmacology.

The race to build the first quantum computer is still ongoing, but Morten Bakker has made big step forward in that process with qubits. A qubit is a unit of quantum information that can be produced in large numbers on chips. Qubits capable of exchanging photons (light particles) could be used in the…

Sonja Boas developed new techniques to study vascular growth computationally. The results of her research provide a better understanding into mechanisms behind vascular growth, which is relevant to the development of medical therapies. She defends her thesis 'Computational modeling of angiogenesis'…

An overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2018, as well as special appointments and royal distinctions.

Researchers from the Department of Economics and the Institute of Public Administration – Olaf van Vliet and Lars van Doorn – have been awarded a grant of 430,000 euros from Instituut Gak to analyse the flexibilisation of the labour market and its implications for social policy.

During the Faculty of Science New Year's reception, Daniël Rozen was named Discoverer of the year 2015. Nienke van der Marel and Koen van der Maaden both won the prize for the best dissertation and Jeroen van Smeden was named Best Teacher of 2015.

On 7 June, the National Museum of Antiquities opened a mini exhibition 'Scanning for Syria'. The exhibition shows how Leiden archaeologists and Delft technical specialists make reconstructions of 3000-year-old Assyrian clay tablets. The originals, stored in museum depots in Raqqa (Syria), have been…

PhD Defence

TEXTS FROM ANCIENT EGYPT. Highlights from the Collection of the Leiden Papyrological Institute. Online exhibition on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the foundation ‘Het Leids Papyrologisch Instituut’ in 2015.

The Leiden Papyrological Institute celebrated its eightieth birthday on Monday 19 January. Its collection of papyri – including paper, potsherds, pieces of wood and even lead – covers the period from 300 B.C. until after 800 A.D. and is entirely of Egyptian origin. The institute’s anniversary is being…

‘In a hole under water there lived a hobbit’: a new species of shrimp named after Bilbo Baggings. Biology student Werner de Gier described this newly discovered species during his bachelor internship at Naturalis Biodiversity Center.

Lecture

Beautiful microscopic specimens play the leading role in the course 'Biodiversity Plant' for first-year Biology students. Normally these are put back in storage right after the course. But not this year!

Lecture

The Joan Van der Waals colloquium is an ongoing bi-weekly lecture series.

Lecture

Lecture, Friends of the Kern Institute lecture