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

The challenge of achieving fast quantification in metabolomics is the presence of severe matrix effects during the MS analysis of complex samples.

Promotor: Prof.dr. T. Hankemeier, Co-Promotor: R.J. Vreeken

A major goal of ABS research is to overcome one of the major bottle-necks in metabolomic research: the lack of a high-throughput infrastructure in which thousands of samples can be processed in a standardized and cost-effective way (max. a few tens of Euro’s per sample for a full metabolome profile).…

We have studied shape with a particular focus on the zebrafish model system. The shape is an essential appearance of the phenotype of a biological specimen and it can be used to read out a current state or response or to study gene expression.

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

Promotor: B. van de Water, Co-Promotores: J.H.N. Meerman, F.J. Verbeek

Promotor: Prof.dr. H.P. Spaink, Co-promotor: Prof. dr. A.H. Meijer

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…

Promotor: Prof.dr. R.M.H. Merks

Can drug screening for tuberculosis treatment be made more efficient?

Promotor: Prof.dr. J.N. Kok, Co-promotor: F.J. Verbeek

Promotores: Prof.dr. P.C.W. Hogendoorn & Prof.dr. H.P. Spaink, Co-promotor: Dr. B.E. Snaar-Jagalska

Promotor: J.N. Kok, Co-promotor: F.J. Verbeek

Promotor: A.P.IJzerman Co-promotor: A. Bender

High-throughput holistic preclinical screens are increasingly used in drug discovery, to assess both drug efficacy and drug safety.

Promotie

Which immune mechanisms are involved in host defense against Staphylococcal infection?

The facility develops and applies advanced, high-throughput methods for genomic research.

Promotor: Prof.dr. E. Deprettere

An overview of research themes and projects at ABS.

Promotie

Promotie

The imaging group focuses on bio-imaging, image analysis and visualization.

The zebrafish is a promising vertebrate model organism in early drug discovery and development.

How can zebrafish models be used to gain a better understanding of host-pathogen interaction mechanisms and to screen new drugs for infectious disease treatment?

Can we develop a generic method for Quan/Qual analysis of small molecule drugs, their metabolites and endogenous metabolites in (pre-)clinical samples?

Inactivating mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes predispose to several types of cancer.

To be able to identify, slow down and reverse functional deterioration in the elderly to give them more years of good health.

The LOFAR radio telescope produces petabytes of data every year. Radio Astronomers use complex multi-step pipelines to process this data and produce scientific images.

The goal of target discovery is to identify and validate proteins and biological pathways that are involved in the disease process. Modulating these target proteins and pathways with small molecules, therapeutic proteins or other biomolecules (e.g. mRNA) could deliver an effective and safe drug or v…

In this thesis, we have studied the potential of the zebrafish larval model in studying the ECS, as a complementary model to the existing rodent models.

Promotor: Prof.dr. B. van de Water, Co-promotor: L.S. Price

Traditional drug discovery approaches have been hampered by (in vitro) cell-culture models that poorly represent the situation in the human body.

Promotor: A.P. IJzerman Co-promotor: L.H. Heitman

Promotor: Prof.dr. M.K. Richardson

Promotor: J.A. van Veen, Co-promotor: E.E. Kuramae

N-acylethanolamines (NAEs), which include the endocannabinoid anandamide, represent an important family of signaling lipids in the brain. The lack of chemical probes that modulate NAE biosynthesis in living systems hamper the understanding of the biological role of these lipids.

We perform multidisciplinary research at molecular, cellular, and organismal levels of animal biology to increase fundamental understanding of health and disease.

How can zebrafish research help understanding human diseases?

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…

Ceramides (CERs), cholesterol, and free fatty acids (FFAs) are the main lipid classes in human stratum corneum (SC, outermost skin layer), but no studies report on the detailed analysis of these classes in a single platform.

The aim of this project is to explore the use of statistical interaction models to quantify cross-omics and omics-drug interactions in large-scale clinical and experimental datasets

In the research programme Drug Discovery & Safety, we are interested in the efficacy and safety of new drugs and novel means to decipher these aspects. Hence, we employ advanced imaging and high-throughput screening techniques next to computational approaches such as chem- and bioinformatics.

The research described in this thesis focused on identifying novel drug targets and synergistic combinations for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), a virulent subtype of breast cancer with a dismal prognosis and limited therapeutic options.

Key publications of the Cancer Drug Target Discovery group

Due to the modern techniques of combinatorial chemistry and high-throughput screening, data on the biological activity of many millions of compounds is known. However, it is still very difficult to transfer this data into knowledge: if we know that compounds A and B bind to a certain protein with high…

Life Sciences Artificial Intelligence Data Science

What is the mechanism of action preceding a physiological effects induced by metallic nanoparticles?

The ambition of the Analytical BioSciences and Metabolomics group led by Thomas Hankemeier is to develop innovative analytical strategies for metabolomics-driven health monitoring and systems biology studies. Understanding the intricate balance between health, disease and adaptation to challenges relies…