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.

Dr. at Max Planck Institute for chemical Ecology, Jena - Germany

Gold nanoparticles show surprisingly strong interactions with light in the visible range, which can be divided into scattering, absorption, and photoluminescence.

The “harpe organisée”, 1720-1840: Rediscovering the lost pedal techniques on harps with a single-action pedal mechanism, is the title of Maria Christina Cleary's PhD thesis. This is the first monographic study on harp pedal techniques, tracing the historical way to pedal on the early pedal harps with…

The Joan van der Waals colloquium is an ongoing bi-weekly lecture series.

Relevant publications of the CIGR participants.

Promotor: M.T.M. Koper, Co-Promotor: L.B.F. Juurlink

Light can be used to apply forces on single cells. Focused lasers have been used by physicists to tweeze particles and to manipulate them. These so called “optical tweezers” can be used as mechanical phenotyping tools for characterising the mechanics of materials and living objects.

The research described in this Thesis was aimed at designing and synthesizing nature-inspired compounds as part of TB vaccine discovery.

To this day, all cyclophellitol-based inhibitors and ABPs have been close analogues of their natural substrate counterparts. As a result, these probes showed high selectivity towards their target glycosidases.

Why do plants produces always produced so many slightly differing metabolites within a particular chemical class?

Due to their central physiological roles in living organisms, retaining beta-glycosidases have been the subject of tremendous research efforts to examine their structure/function relation using numerous biophysical and biochemical approaches.

Viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) is a group of acute diseases caused by highly infectious viruses including Ebola, Lassa, Dengue viruses. Its high mortality rate poses high risk to public health, however, studies on VHF have been hampered due to the non-availability of proper models and incomplete knowledge…

The Division of Systems Pharmacology and Pharmacy (SPP) aims to develop precision medicine approaches to characterize and predict variation in treatment response and enhance translational drug development strategies.

Now online in Molecular Microbiology our studies on the motility of Sulfolobus acidocaldarius and its unique swimming organelle, the archaellum.

Within this thesis the central stage is taken by the discovery and investigation of transglycosylation of sterols. First, investigation focuses on the development of a method to accurately detect and quantify glucosylated metabolites in biological materials.

The mission of the Plant Sciences cluster is to contribute to the sustainable production of high-quality crops, flowers and high-value bio-based products, and to contribute to the maintenance and restoration of biodiversity in natural ecosystems. This is realised by generating fundamental knowledge…

The aim of this thesis is to explore the use of Bioorthogonal Antigens to study the cross-presentation pathway.

Promotor: M.A.G.J. Orrit

It is estimated that approximately 30% of all proteins require a metal to function. Investigating the relationship between metal-binding and peptide/protein folding allows us to uncover fundamental rules for creating metallo-peptides and proteins, which in turn leads to the creation of new structures,…

Apart from his activities as coordinator of the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, Rogier Schneemann is co-founder, guitarist and composer of the Dutch-Italian group Azure Hiptronics, originally formed in 2006.

Ferritin is a spherical metalloprotein, capable of storing and releasing iron in a controllable way. It is composed of a protein shell of about 12 nm and within its cavity, iron is stored in a mineral form.

Lecture

What chemicals do plants have available, and what happens if they use them when faced with bacteria or fungi? That is what PhD candidate Luis Salomé Abarca is keen to learn. He studies plants’ survival and their use of chemical components in communication and defence. Salomé Abarca works at the Natural…

The last blog of Leiden Law Blog of 2018 was written by Ladislav Kováč. He discusses the proposal for the Single-use Plastics Directive of the EU which was agreed upon on 19 December.

Alexander Kros studies supramolecular systems in a biological environment. The unifying theme between the projects in my lab is specific molecular recognition, i.e. the intermolecular interaction between complementary molecules with high affinity and selectivity. Studying, imitating and dissecting processes…

Promotor: M. Ubbink, Co-Promotor: R. T. Dame

The studies described in this thesis deal with glycosidases, in particular alpha-galactosidases.

Authoritative and cutting-edge, Bacterial Chromatin: Methods and Protocols aims to be useful as an up-to-date reference work for scholars in the bacterial chromatin field, those entering the field from adjacent research fields, and scientists in the eukaryotic chromatin field.

The research presented in this thesis explores the chemotherapeutic potential of metal-based compounds as chemotherapy agents, with an initial focus on the synthesis and DNA interaction studies of platinum and palladium compounds utilizing the [Pt(bapbpy)]2+ scaffold. The study identifies intercalation…

Authoritative and cutting-edge, Bacterial Chromatin: Methods and Protocols, Second Edition aims to be a useful up-to-date reference work for researchers currently in the field and to those entering the field.

The research described in this thesis combines the latest insights in lysosomal function with lysosome centred cell signalling.

Taxonomy as a science has accumulated data and knowledge for more than 250 years.

Through his project we will unravel the global regulatory networks that control gene expression in Streptomyces bacteria and allow them to properly respond to major changes in the environment; we will then harness this knowledge to activate and identify novel antibiotics

During my PhD research, I studied the photon statistics of light emitted by a microcavity that contains a single quantum dot (QD) on resonance.

Promotor: E.R. Eliel, Co-Promotor: M.J.A. de Dood

Healthy aging is one of the prime goals in today's society and atherosclerosis is among the greatest causes of morbidity in elderly. Cardiovascular disease patients receiving treatment are often of advanced aged and have an aged immune system, which limits translating experimental findings to the pa…

To explore the potential of marine microorganisms as producers of novel antimicrobial agents and as bioprotectants in aqua- and agriculture, using an integrative, ecology-based strategy for bioprospecting.

Paleobotanist Menno Booi discovered that 250 previously described fossil tree species are objectively not distinguishable; they belong to only one single species.

The genomic DNA of every organism is organized and compacted in order to fit inside the cell. This is achieved by the joint action of numerous architectural proteins that aid in folding the genome. Genome folding is tightly interconnected with transcription, with genes in certain regions being silenced,…

The adsorption of D2 and CO2 on catalyst surfaces is studied using a molecular beam in ultra-high vacuum.

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

The ambition of the Medical Systems Biophysics and Bioengineering group led by Alireza Mashaghi is to develop and use physics and engineering concepts and tools for pathophysiology, diagnostics and therapy.

Promotor: M.T.M. Koper, Co-promotors: A.I. Yanson, L.B.F. Juurlink

The genetic information of all living organisms is contained in their DNA. Cells modify the degree of DNA compaction by epigenetics, which largely determines what genes are read out and which genes are transcriptionally silent.

This is the physics summer school of Leiden University. It is part of the Leiden Institute of Physics (LION). The summer school is intended for Bachelor (BSc) students in physics. It covers topics from quantum matter and optics, to biological & soft matter physics and cosmology and theoretical physics.…

In this thesis, the role of mast cells in atherosclerosis and novel therapeutic strategies to inhibit atherosclerosis progression are discussed. The first part of the thesis specifically focuses on the relation between mast cells and advanced human atherosclerotic plaque characteristics.

We have studied the impact of particle shape anisotropy, multivalent interactions and flexibility on systems of micron-sized colloidal particles.