How can we find novel natural products from Actinomycetes that act as growth modulators on mammalian cells? Can we harvest and develop the potential of these novel compounds for industrial and medical biotechnology?

Which microorganisms live near and inside plant roots? How do they contribute to plant health? Can microorganisms be employed in plant protection?

Biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) for natural products are widespread in microbial genomes, and they are rapidly exchanged. This research assesses the factors that control the spread of BGCs and resistance genes in nature. This includes risk assessment for the spread of engineered DNA in nature.

In his inaugural lecture Dennis Claessen will explain how he wants to ensure that lecturers have less admin to do.

Which compounds and microorganisms that live near and inside plant roots are beneficial? Can we use this knowledge to improve the health and growth of crop plants?

Professors Jos Raaijmakers (NIOO) and Gilles Van Wezel (IBL) received an STW Perspectief- grant of €3 million from the Dutch Technology Foundation and several supporting companies.

‘Working in Leiden is a dream come true.’ Ákos Kovács studied in his birth country Hungary and worked in Germany, Denmark and Groningen. As professor of Microbiome Ecology at IBL, he immediately started working together with his new colleagues to make discoveries about the versatile bacterial species…

How do plants lure microscopically small 'support teams' into their roots for protection against diseases? And what functions are activated in the microbes and the plants?

Soil bacteria can produce a wealth of antibiotics that are new to us, claims Gilles van Wezel, Professor of Molecular Biotechnology at the Institute of Biology Leiden. His research group has developed a method that can rapidly identify and produce these unknown compounds.

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

In an unpredictable environment bacteria evolve the same strategy as shareholders who try to protect themselves against unpredictable swings in the stock market. Experimental evolution biologist Dr Bertus Beaumont published an article on this discovery on 5 November in the journal Nature.

Edith Schippers, Minister of Health, will be investing six million euros over the coming four years to boost research on new antibiotics. The programme will be set up by several different parties, including the Leiden Centre for Antimicrobial Research.