Three speakers, three fascinating science stories and a well-filled lecture hall. The Niko Tinbergen Lecture had a successful restart on 10 December 2019.

Almost all bacteria are enveloped by a cell wall that provides cellular protection.

Which brain cell does what, when Parkinson's disease arises? It won't be long before this jigsaw is solved piece by piece. Ahmed Mahfouz, computational biologist, combines bio-knowledge from Leiden with algorithms from Delft and is getting closer to finding the key.

The loss of T-cell homeostasis and tolerance towards self-antigens is the underlying cause of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases like atherosclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis or type I diabetes. Traditionally, the treatment of these diseases consisted on systemic immune suppression, which can entail…

Geneticist Hans Clevers will give the first Niko Tinbergen lecture new style on 10 December, which is all about stem cells. The young Leiden professors Ariane Briegel and Susana Chuva de Sousa Lopes talk about bacterial noses and the cultivation of egg cells in the lab in short introductory lectures…

Cardiovascular syndromes are the major cause of death in Western societies.

Atherosclerosis, in particular rupture of atherosclerotic plaques, is the underlying cause of most heart attacks or strokes and is the leading cause of death worldwide.

Atherosclerosis is the most important underlying process that drives cardiovascular disease, and is characterized by an accumulation of cholesterol which triggers an inflammatory response in the vessel wall.

From molecule, to cell, to organism. The high-level drug research at the Cell Observatory aimes at reducing the spread of cancer and developing new medicines for tuberculosis.

Wiskunde en Natuurwetenschappen, Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR)

The word ¨pyroptosis¨ can be understood as ¨fiery falling¨, which describes the bursting of pro-inflammatory signals from the dying cell. Our observations indicate that pyroptosis also ¨spreads like wildfire¨ and once a cell dies via pyroptotic cell death, neighbouring cells are more prone to die as…

Mechanobiology is a major area in biology, however, mechanics is currently a missing element in drug development pipelines. This has led to a high cost for the society. Mechanotoxicity of drugs often appears as a long-term side effect of drugs, and has led to removal of drugs from the market. Furthermore,…

We aim to engineer streptomycetes to fully exploit their potential for natural product productions, by a rational design and evolution approach.

Atherosclerosis is the main underlying pathology of cardiovascular disease. Atherosclerosis is caused by an immune response which is directed against (modified) lipoproteins which accumulate in the vessel wall.

Many teachers in secondary education take differences between pupils into account . PhD research by Saskia Stollman (ICLON) shows that they need room to experiment and the support of the school management. Defence on May 23, 2018.

Source: Biosens Bioelectron, Volume 74, pp. 233-42 (2015)

The Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) will start construction this year of the largest non-profit stem cell and gene therapy facility in the Netherlands, and one of the largest facilities in Europe. NECSTGEN – the Netherlands Center for the Clinical Advancement of Stem Cell and Gene Therapies…

Promotores: Prof.dr. E.A.L. Biessen, Prof.dr. T.J.C. van Berkel

Visualization of biomolecules in living cells by tagging with gold nanoparticles.

Promotores: T.H.W. Bäck, A. Plaat, Co-promotor: F.J. Verbeek

Promotores: Prof.dr. M.K. Richardson, Prof.dr. H.P. Spaink

This dissertation focuses on the systematic vowel alternations displayed by the Proto-Germanic n-stems. The fact is, that many of these nouns now appear to have preserved the ablaut system of the Indo-European proto-language spoken some five millennia ago. In this respect, the n-stems are truly comparable…

In this research project, we aimed to obtain more insight in the role of mast cells in the immune driven disorders rheumatoid arthritis and atherosclerosis.

What is the role of cell wall-deficiency in the persistence of tuberculosis?

My PhD thesis investigates the ecological significance of resistance against drought-induced air bubble formation inside the water conduits of plants (embolism), and the plasticity and functional aspects of stem anatomical traits in woody and herbaceous species.

A new type of tripodal squaramide-based supramolecular hydrogels is developed and studied.

What relationships exist between different types of PLCs and cognitive differentiated teaching?

Bacteria have the ability to alter their morphology in order to adapt to changing environments.

Promotor: Huub J.M. de Groot, Co-promotor: Francesco Buda

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

Promotoren: G.F.A. Kersten, W. Jiskoot, Co-promotor: J-P. Amorij

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

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.

We aim to unravel the molecular mechanisms involved in the transformation of eukaryotic cells by Agrobacterium.

This project investigates the role of art in the public and academic debate on biosolar energy

Researchers and clinicians at Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) are about to begin a milestone clinical study. It will be the first time a stem cell gene therapy developed in the Netherlands is used in a clinic. The therapy will be used to treat children with SCID, a rare disorder where children…

This thesis describes the development of a variety of mannosylated conjugates. Antigen presenting cells bear mannoside recognizing receptors that actively transport antigen into the cell. This thesis exploits this feature for the development of improved vaccines.

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.

This thesis focuses on two processes involved in fighting infections: metabolism and immune cell motility and navigation.

The central question of this Vici proposal is to investigate if, and how actinobacteria exploit life without a cell wall.

What is the most effective way to eliminate tumour cells? The DNA repair mechanism could play an important role in increasing the effectiveness of chemotherapy in the fight against cancerous cells. If we are to influence this mechanism, we need fundamental knowledge about how the mechanism works.

Cell-based medicinal products (CBMPs) show great promise when it comes to the treatment of genetic disorders. However, there is limited knowledge about CBMP stability during their production, storage, and administration to patients. The main focus of my research is the characterization of CBMPs using…

Influenza CD8(+) T-cell epitopes are conserved amongst influenza strains and can be recognized by influenza-specific cytotoxic T-cells (CTLs), which can rapidly clear infected cells. An influenza peptide vaccine that elicits these CTLs would therefore be an alternative to current influenza vaccines,…

The group of Dr. Roxanne Kieltyka designs and synthesizes molecules that self-assemble into polymeric materials using specific non-covalent interactions. These substrates can be used for numerous applications in medicine ranging from disease detection to cell delivery depending on the (bio)molecular…

This thesis describes the design and synthesis of fragments of various cell wall carbohydrates of the Streptococcus species, including the branched Group B-specific antigen (GBC) of Group B Streptococcus, glycerol phosphate (GroP) modified group A carbohydrate (GAC), and the O-acetylated type 1 capsular…

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…

Wiskunde en Natuurwetenschappen, Leids Instituut voor Chemisch Onderzoek (LIC)

There are many complex links in the chain that provides patients with new drugs: from fundamental science, to clinical tests, to production. The entire chain can be found in Leiden. Leiden University, the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and the businesses at the Leiden Bio Science Park (LBSP)…