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

Natural vanilla flavor is one of the most important in the world. However, the cost of this flavor is expensive. Production of this flavor by alternative methods, could reduce the cost.

Mycoheterotrophy is a particular mode of life in which plants obtain carbohydrates from their associated fungal partners, instead of by using photosynthesis.

The mycorrhizal symbiosis is among the most widespread species interactions on Earth⁠. This thesis focuses on orchid mycorrhiza, a unique mycorrhizal type that has caught scientists’ attention for centuries⁠.

Two bacterial species team up inside the plant root system to rescue their host from fungal infection. This was discovered by a team of microbiologists and bioinformaticians from the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, Wageningen University, and the Institute of Biology Leiden. They also identified the…

This thesis introduces a relational interaction model and a practical tool for describing, visualising and generating interactive dialogues.

Microbes influence and respond to other organisms. This theme explores the dynamic relationships within plant and animal microbiomes, and the immune responses that govern host defense. Using model systems such as zebrafish, insects, and plants, we investigate fundamental processes and engineer microbes…

This ecological community has long been known to affect host biology, and their diverse roles have been further clarified in recent years following numerous studies of animal:microbiota interactions in diverse systems.

Intimate Legal Interactions (ILI) is an interdisciplinary and international group of scholars who share an interest in laws governing intimate relationships – such as marriage and civil partnership, divorce, birth, death, parenthood, childcare, sexual/romantic relationships, and caring relationships…

Fungal food spoilage often starts with a contamination with spores. Experimental data strongly indicate the existence of subpopulations of spores with different levels of resistance to preservation methods.

How does global change across time and space lead to convergence and loss of variation or increasing diversity and conflict?

Fostering multi-polar perspectives that engage more connected, nuanced and pluralistic understandings of the world. Global Interactions encourages and supports research that provides significant new insights on these global processes across time and space.

How do social and political developments influence the process of meaning-making in different parts of the world? Why is a particular discourse interpreted in numerous ways depending on the context it is produced and propagated? And how are culture, politics, history, and language intertwined?

This thesis deals with the use of sound in interactions in the context of participatory systems and data sonification. We investigate an interactive environment where participants perceive information of the data through sound elements.

Promotor: E.F. Smets, Co-promotor: J. Geml

This chapter introduces interactive documentaries (also known as i-docs) in digital and audiovisual anthropology. Interactive documentaries allow an audience to actively engage with an interface in order to experience the content. For example, opening Miranda Dahlin’s Exiliados: Mexican Asylum in El…

Membrane proteins and membrane interactions of proteins are studied by spin label EPR. Intact, native membranes, vesicles of all sizes and nano-disks can be investigated, because the size of the object does not matter in EPR. Whereas solution NMR is limited to micelles (a few nm in diameter), by EPR…

Many biological processes occur by biomolecules coming together and organizing into specific clusters without being bound to each other. These interactions range from clustering, transiently interacting (kiss and run), or assembling to multimeric units that can only function in conjunction. The hydrogen…

To make successful communication possible, people need much more than their knowledge of the language system.

Interaction between Legal Systems acknowledges that law-making and law enforcement are increasingly taking place on various levels: in a global context, in EU context, on a national level and in a private law framework. These levels influence each other, sometimes directly, on the basis of a hierarchical…

Streptomyces are bacteria abundant in soil that participate in diverse and complex interactions. These bacteria are the main producers of the antibiotics we currently use in the clinic.

Biological cells, the basic building blocks of all life forms, are surrounded by a lipid membrane. More than half of the membrane is occupied by membrane proteins, which can regulate the cell functionality through specific arrangements.

Explore an interactive i-doc platform for virtual navigation of ethnographically investigated case studies in Gdańsk, Turin, and Rotterdam.

The aim of this thesis is to study cell-cell interactions and the development of an assay to explore and quantify the exchange of membrane compounds.

Promotores: Prof.dr. H. van Veen & Prof.dr. W. de Boer (Wageningen University)

The lipid membrane is a basic structural component of all living cells. Embedded in this nanometer-thin barrier, membrane proteins shape the membrane and at the same time respond to the shape of the membrane.

It is well-known that humans have significantly transformed ecosystems since their adoption of agriculture. However, in a deeper past, prehistoric hunter-gatherers may already have altered and modified their niche in ways that had major impacts on ecosystems.

Promotor: Prof.dr. E.J.J. Groenen

Animal Sciences’ contributions to the Host-Microbe Interactions research theme focus on the interaction of animal hosts with pathogenic microbes but also the beneficial role of the gut microbiome.

Microbial Sciences' contribution to the Host-Microbe Interactions research theme is to investigate how beneficial or disease-causing microbes associate and interact with their host.

Promotor: E.F. Smets Co-promotor: J. Geml

Organisms often need to adapt more efficiently and devise new strategies for surviving difficult ecological circumstances.

In this thesis, the researcher developed a nanosystem based on the metallophilic Interaction between cyclometalated complexes.

Plant Sciences' contribution to the Host-Microbe Interactions research theme is to dissect how microorganisms and microbiomes interact with the plant host and the insects on those plants, and how these insights may be harnessed to improve plant growth and health, by steering microbiome composition and…

In this thesis, the role of plant-mediated soil legacy effects in shaping aboveground plant-insect interactions was investigated.

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.

Soil biodiversity is of great importance for the maintenance of multifunctionality in terrestrial ecosystems.

The 18th edition of SIP will be organised by Caroline Mueller at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. More information can be found on the SIP 2024 Homepage. The 17th Symposium on Insect-Plant relationships in Leiden has been held online from 25 to the 30 July 2021.

The available tools for academic literature search return a list of ranked documents, which might not be ideal for some tasks. To facilitate these tasks, I am creating a visual representation of the academic search space where the user can browse academic topics.

Subproject of the NWO Smart Culture Grant research project 'The Critical Visitor'.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide.

What are the antecedents and outcomes of the quality of interaction in public service encounters?

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?

On the 4th of June, Menghui Shi successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Menghui Shi on this achievement!

The INTERACT project strive to unlock the enormous biotechnological potential of microbes, leading to sustainable crop productions systems.