Are Weyl particles the ideal conductors? Do cells without a cell wall play a role in chronic Tuberculosis infections? Carlo Beenakker and Dennis Claessen want to answer these questions. They both received a KLEIN grant from the NWO. With these grants, NWO wants to stimulate innovative, fundamental r…

During post-embryonic development into adults, animals face an environment that fluctuates constantly. For example, in nutrient availability, temperature, and osmolarity (e.g., salt concentration).

Cardiovascular diseases are the primary cause of death in the world with atherosclerosis as primary underlying cause.

Researchers from Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) have discovered how specialised immune cells can detect and remove cancers that are ‘invisible’ to the conventional defence mechanisms of the immune system. Their work has been published in Nature. The findings…

Joost Beltman (LACDR, Leiden University) has provided novel insights in the way T cells migrate towards virus-infected cells. This was accomplished by a combination of experimental research in the group of Ton Schumacher (Dutch Cancer Institute, NKI) and computer simulations in collaboration with Rob…

Promotor: T. Schmidt

American pharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb will be building a new (CAR-T) cell therapy facility in the Oegstgeest part of the Leiden Bio Science Park. The company will manufacture and develop CAR T-cell therapy for patients with blood cancer (leukaemia), for example.

In breast cancer, metastasis rather than the primary tumour is the cause of death. A lack of oxygen in the tumour cells promotes this metastasis, accompanied by a reprogramming of the cell's metabolism. PhD candidate Qiuyu Liu investigated these alterations to get more knowledge about the actionable…

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.

Leiden biophysicists have found a new possible way to attack cancer cells. They have located ‘sinkholes’ on the cells where receptor proteins disappear from the surface. If a drug could push these proteins towards those areas, it would kill the cancer cell.

The European Union has invested ten million euros in the so-called iNEXT-Discovery consortium. The goal of this new consortium is to enable European researchers to extend innovative structural biology research. The Netherlands Centre for Electron Nanoscopy (NeCEN) is also part of iNEXT-Disovery, which…

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

Developing a new way to measure marine biodiversity at high resolution, by listening to it.

Pericytes, the mural cells of blood microvessels, are important regulators of vascular morphogenesis and function that have been postulated to mechanically control microvascular diameter through as yet unknown mechanisms.

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…

Key publications of the Medical Systems Biophysics and Bioengineeringgroup (Mashaghi Lab)

We aim to provide new insights relating to the spectacular multi-cellular life cycle of streptomycetes and other actinobacteria.

Promotor: G.A. van der Marel, Co-promotor: J.D.C. Codée

Single-celled organisms have stiffer DNA than multicellular lifeforms like humans and rice. Theoretical physicists managed to simulate the folding in full genomes for the first time to reach this conclusion. Publication in Biophysical Journal on February 7.

A group of single-celled organisms organises its DNA in a similar way to higher organisms such as plants, animals, and fungi. However, the way packaged DNA is read out differs between the two related groups, Bram Henneman discovered. PhD defence on 5 December.

In this thesis, the discovery and optimization is described of chemical tools to study the N-acylethanolamine (NAE) biosynthetic pathway.

Biology is one of the four top educational programs at Leiden University according to the national “Guide to Universities” (Keuzegids Universiteiten).

Leiden researchers have found minute movements in the laccase enzyme. This discovery could lead to the development of much more efficient biofuel cells. Publication in Biophysical Journal.

Drug development is hampered by the limited predictive value of conventional 2D culture systems, which fail to recapitulate the complexity of the disease microenvironment and contribute to high clinical attrition rates.

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…

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.P. van Wezel

On Monday the 8th of December, the annual symposium of the IBL will be organized at the main building of the LUMC Leiden. This year’s theme is “Integrative Biology towards Healthy Communities”.

best phd theses of the faculty of science Leiden - physics, chemistry, computer science, biopharmaceutical sciences, biology, industrial ecology, environmental sciences, astronomy, mathematics. thesis

Advanced fluorescence microscopy techniques have revealed how steroid receptors move inside the nucleus. The results were published by a team from Leiden University and the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, led by IBL-researcher Marcel Schaaf.

This dissertation combines the use of defined microenvironments, high-resolution fluorescence microscopy, and time-resolved analysis, to study intracellular and cellular motility.

Parkinson's disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease in the world. One of its symptoms is the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta.

Can bacteria be engineered to convert methanol into valuable chemicals with high efficiency?

Promotor: Prof.dr. J. Kuiper

The research described in this thesis focused on the use of bioorthogonal antigens to investigate immunological processes in antigen presenting cells. Bioorthogonal antigens are antigenic proteins produced through recombinant expression in a methionine auxotrophic E. coli strain.

New and reemerging infectious diseases call for innovative and efficient control strategies of which fast vaccine design and development represent an important element.

Promotores: B. van de Water; P. Hogendoorn; J. Bovée Co-Promotor: E.H.J. Danen

New research published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology suggests that these changes to the behavior of the immune system are persistent and can continue even after diet is improvedAlmost everyone knows that improving your eating habits will most likely improve your health. What most people may not…

This thesis describes our search to identify and understand possible regulatory mechanisms of integrin α6β4 in cell-matrix adhesion and intracelular signaling.

Tackling key challenges of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry to aid drug discovery is one of the focus areas of Leiden University. To this end, the Leiden Early Drug Discovery & Development network (LED3) was established by the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC), the Institute of Biology Leiden…

Vera van Noort has been appointed Professor in the field of Computational Biology within the Faculty of Science at the Institute of Biology from the 1st of February 2017. Van Noort’s expertise is in bioinformatics and her research focuses on the computational analysis of large-scale biological data…

On 23 April 2021, Professor Alfred Vertegaal from the Department of Cell and Chemical Biology at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) delivered his inaugural lecture ‘Unraveling and exploiting cellular communication codes’. Vertegaal used the opportunity to describe how research in the field…

Leiden University has awarded its prestigious University Medal to Emeritus Professor Lex van der Eb. As a pioneer in genetics and molecular biology, he received this honour for his services to science and his key role in the development of the Leiden Bio Science Park (LBSP).

The transition from single cells to multicellular organisms was a key step in evolution. Researchers from Leiden and Amsterdam developed a mathematical model that explains how this transition may have come about. They suspect cooperating cells may correct each other’s mistakes. Publication in eLife…

Publication by: Amanda Foks, Gijs van Puijvelde, Jolien Wolbert, Mara Kröner, Vanessa Frodermann, Thomas van der Heijden, Peter van Santbrink, Louis Boon, Ilze Bot and Johan Kuiper. Cardiovascular Research. 2016;111(3):252-261.

150 new Biology students have arrived in Leiden. This is more than ever and we seem to settle among the big three Universities for Biology in the Netherlands.