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

Promotor: Roeland M.H. Merks

Epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity (EMP) and tumor cell migration play an important role in cancer progression, and an improved understanding of the mechanisms underlying these concepts is essential for developing new targeted approaches.

There is a need for alternative methods to replace, reduce and refine (3R) animal experimentation. Combining experimental data from high-throughput in vitro studies with in silico modeling is a promising approach to unravel the effect of chemicals on living cells and to gain a better understanding of…

Promotor: Prof.dr. J.N. Kok

In this thesis it is posed that the central object of preference discovery is a co-creative process in which the Other can be represented by a machine. It explores efficient methods to enhance introverted intuition using extraverted intuition's communication lines.

Drug-target binding kinetics determine the time course of the central event in pharmacotherapy: Drug-target interaction.

This dissertation focused on computational methods based on first principles calculations using the Density Functional Theory (DFT) framework. Emphasis was laid on affordable methods that can provide a tradeoff between computational expense and accuracy.

Immunotherapies for cancer are an emerging class of therapeutic strategies which aim to treat cancer via augmentation of the immune system.

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

Cursus, Summer School

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

LUMC Technology Focus Area (TFA) Data Analytics is een samenwerkingsverband van verschillende onderzoeksgroepen in het LUMC die nieuwe kwantitatieve en computationele methodologie ontwikkelen voor biomedisch en klinisch onderzoek.

Describe and identify what dosimetry parameters are of importance to interpret dose-response relationships (eg., mortality, sub-lethal, growth or reproduction inhabitation, DNA damage and reactive oxygen species, etc. ) for metal-based nanoparticles? How to develop quantitative models that enable to…

This thesis describes the importance of being able to control the selectivity of potential drug candidates.

The Minor Computational Approaches to Disease, Signaling and Drug Targets (CADSDT) is focused on fundamental scientific research required for discovery of new drug targets and development of new drugs.

In the current global context, there is a pressing need to address sustainable energy supplies to safeguard our Planet and its ecosystems. The choices made by human society have a significant impact on genetic evolution and climate.

The long-held desire - to link structure directly to function and to explain molecular mechanisms based on basic chemical or physical principles - is finally coming closer, satisfying not only our scientific curiosity but also offering new solutions to the many challenges in the field of health, energy…

Assessing the risks of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) solely on the basis of experimental assays is time-consuming, resource intensive, and constrained by ethical considerations (such as the principles of the 3Rs of animal testing). The adoption of computational toxicology in this field is a high p…

Optical projection tomography (OPT) is a tomographic 3D imaging technique used for specimens in the millimetre scale.

Despite being the object of intense study, embryonic development has been difficult to model due to a number of reasons. First, complex tissues can be comprised of many cell types, of which we probably only know a subset.

Lezing

In this work we describe three methods to improve the performance of Quantum Field Theory calculations.

Most of current public-key cryptography is considered insecure against attacks from sufficiently powerful quantum computers. Post-quantum cryptography studies methods to secure information resistant against such attacks. One proposal is isogeny-based cryptography, which bases its security on computational…

We strive to address the challenge of constructing a modeling language to write software which can take advantage of recent hardware developments (multicore, cloud) without compromising in its abstraction levels.

This thesis systematically studies the physicochemical properties of non-planar, propeller-shaped, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The synthesis of several so-called propellerenes is described on a gram scale, using optimized procedures aimed at using less hazardous reagents and reducing the amount…

In this thesis, we consider various (electro)chemical phenomena at surfaces and nanoparticles and their underlying atomistic processes, which we studied using first-principles methods such as density functional theory.

Promotor: Prof.dr. H.V.J. Linnartz

Description of Biotic ligand models: making an inventory of available models & assessment of the variability of the predicted HC5 using the BLMs in different Dutch water types (2005 - 2007)

Promotie

Sonja Boas ontwikkelde nieuwe technieken om het groeiproces van bloedvaten op computationele wijze te bestuderen. De resultaten van haar onderzoek geven een beter begrip van mechanismen in bloedvatgroei en dat is relevant voor de ontwikkeling van medische therapieën. Promotie op dinsdag 22 december…

To improve cancer treatments, personalized medicine approaches have aimed to identify exactly which mutations are driving tumor development in a given patient and specifically target these mutations using precision therapies.

Promotie

In 2016 hebben Universitaire Medische Centra (UMC's) van Nederland de zelfevaluatie-tool ontwikkeld gebaseerd op het PhD Competence Model. Onze partners van de Universiteit Utrecht stellen een digitale versie van de tool kosteloos beschikbaar voor onze promovendi binnen de Universiteit Leiden, ook voor…

Real-life processes are characterized by dynamics involving time. Examples are walking, sleeping, disease progress in medical treatment, and events in a workflow.

Nature uses a special class of histone proteins, histone variants, to modulate the properties of chromatin at defined genomic locations.

Promotor: Prof.dr. E. Deprettere

Kunst en vrije tijd, Kunst en vrije tijd

The aim of this thesis was to develop novel treatment strategies for different types of eye melanoma utilizing zebrafish models. We first establish orthotopic and ectopic xenograft models for uveal and conjunctival melanoma by engraftment of the immortalized cells derived from these tumors into zebrafish…

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

Death in all types of melanomas is generally caused by metastasis. Uveal melanoma (UM) is the most common intraocular melanoma, there are currently no (patient-derived) animal models that faithfully recapitulate metastatic dissemination of UM.

This dissertation studies the Asymptotics of Bayesian nonparametric inference for Gaussian linear models.

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

Industrial manufacturing processes, such as the production of steel or the stamping of car body parts, are complex semi-batch processes with many process steps, machine parameters and quality indicators.

Promotoren: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo en Dr. R. Heijungs

Clinical development of drugs for central nervous system (CNS) disorders has been particularly challenging and still suffers from high attrition rates.

The molecular mechanisms that instigate a healthy cell to become malignant are fueled by (epi)genetic alterations in so-called driver genes.

Novel entities may pose risks to humans and the environment. The small particle size and relatively large surface area of micro- and nanoparticles (MNPs) make them capable of adsorbing other novel entities, leading to the formation of aggregated contamination.

This dissertation focuses on developing new mathematical and statistical methods to properly represent time-varying covariates and model them within the context of time-to-event analysis.