Promotor: R.D. Gill, F. Taroni

DNA carries various forms of information. Out of these forms of information the most well-known is classical genetic information.

Promotor: Prof.dr. C.W.J. Beenakker

Promotor: B. van de Water

Promotores: Prof.dr. M. Danhof, Prof.dr. D.R. Stanski

The endocannabinoid receptors CB1R and CB2R are involved in a plethora of processes, and consequently are involved in many pathological conditions. Their wide distribution makes the CBRs both an interesting therapeutic target and hard to study.

Promotor: Prof.dr. T. Hankemeier, Co-promotor: Theo Reijmers

Promotor: Prof.dr. A. P. IJzerman, Co-Promotor: L.H. Heitman

Kinase inhibitors are key therapeutic agents, particularly in oncology, yet their clinical efficacy is often hampered by off-target effects and limited understanding of their cellular target profiles.

Systems are called real-time systems, if the correctness of the system does not only depend on the correctness of the system output but also on whether the output is delivered on time.

This thesis aims to investigate the effect of tripartite interaction between microbial inoculants, the plant, and herbivore insects on the rhizosphere microbiome and volatilome. We investigated the rhizosphere microbiome and volatilome of tomato plants exposed to insect herbivory and/or inoculated with…

Heart failure is a major health care problem with high mortality.

This thesis investigates how cell shape and collective behavior influence the dynamics and structure of biological tissues, which are crucial for understanding processes like embryonic development, tissue regeneration, and metastasis.

Promotores: J.C. van Houwelingen, S.A. van de Geer

Cardiovascular syndromes are the major cause of death in Western societies.

Promotores: Prof.dr. H.P. Spaink & Prof.dr. P.C.W. Hogendoorn Co-promotor: Dr. M.J.M. Schaaf

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition caused by a dysregulated host response to infection, it is associated with significant morbidity, mortality, and with a high financial burden on global healthcare systems. Bacterial infections are the primary cause of sepsis, but the growing prevalence of antimicrobial…

Cancer is considered the silent pandemic of the 21st century and the second leading cause of death worldwide.

Promotor: Prof.dr. J.N. Kok, Co-promotor: A.J. Knobbe

This thesis describes the use of a combined approach of computational and experimental techniques to gain novel insights to understand the glycosylation reaction and its reactive intermediates.

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

Constraint multi-objective optimization with a limited budget for function evaluations is challenging. This thesis tackles this problem by proposing new optimization algorithms. These algorithms are applied on holistic ship design problems. This helps naval architects balance objectives like cost, efficiency,…

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.

We find ourselves in an era of transition, not just towards a more computing- and data-driven society but also away from unsustainable fossil fuels as an energy source.

One of the most important puzzles in modern astrophysics is the nature of dark matter.

The Standard Model (SM) of particle physics fails to explain several observed phenomena and is incomplete. In order to resolve this problem, one may extend the SM by adding new particles.

This thesis describes the design and synthesis of fragments of various cell wall carbohydrates of the Streptococcus species, including the branched Group B-specific antigen (GBC) of Group B Streptococcus, glycerol phosphate (GroP) modified group A carbohydrate (GAC), and the O-acetylated type 1 capsular…

Inflammatory skin diseases such as psoriasis and atopic dermatitis can severely impact both the physical and social aspect of a patient’s life. Aberrant inflammatory responses are thought to be a major causative factor in these disorders, but an abundance of different factors contribute to the development…

This thesis investigates a pharmacological challenge model induced by Toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7) activation, focusing on skin inflammation and its implications for early drug development.

The type-IV secretion system (T4SS) is a machinery able to transfer DNA and proteins between bacteria and in certain cases also to eukaryotic cells.

The main subject of this thesis is the design and synthesis of paramagnetic molecules for protein studies with NMR and EPR spectroscopy.

Material circularity and energy efficiency are highly relevant and intertwined issues for the transition towards a carbon-neutral and circular built environment. In the Netherlands, the building sector has been rendered a priority towards a circular and low-carbon society.

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.

In this thesis, the focus lies on studying glucocorticoid receptor dynamics in living cells with the aim of understanding how this transcription factor finds its DNA target sites to regulate transcription.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) constitutes a small subtype (~15%) of breast cancer, but causes the majority of breast cancer-related deaths.

The spindle-assembly checkpoint (SAC) is a safety mechanism which secures accurate chromosome segregation during mitosis.

Several single-stranded RNA viruses make use of Xrn1-resistant RNAs in their 3’ untranslated regions of their genome RNAs in order to increase their pathogenicity.

Antimicrobial drugs constitute a fundamental part of modern medicine. The global rise in antimicrobial resistance poses a major threat to global health.

Continuous optimization is never easy: the exact solution is always a luxury demand and the theory of it is not always analytical and elegant.

In this Ph.D. thesis, we characterized two novel upstream regulators of JUB1, HB40, and HB22, in Arabidopsis thaliana. In Chapter 2, we described functions of HB40 in modulating growth and development via the regulation of JUB1 and GA inactivation genes GA2OXs.

We study the interplay of topology and geometry with chirality for several passive and active systems, employing both analytical and numerical methods.

Atherosclerosis is the main underlying pathology of cardiovascular disease. Atherosclerosis is caused by an immune response which is directed against (modified) lipoproteins which accumulate in the vessel wall.

Modeling and analysis of cyber-physical systems are still challenging. One reason is that cyber-physical systems involve many different parts (cyber or physical), of different nature (discrete or continuous), and in constant interaction via sensing and actuating.

One of the effects of climate change is the phenomenon of desertification, a process that occurs in semi-arid and arid areas and causes land degradation as well as vegetation loss. Due to the lack of resources, vegetation self-organizes to sustain itself by forming large-scale spatial patterns.

The skin is our natural barrier and lipids are a key part of this barrier. In the outer skin layer, the stratum corneum (SC), lipids form a densely organized structure dependent on the composition of these lipids.

This thesis describes biochemical investigations of glucocerebrosidase (GBA), the lysosomal β- glucosidase that is deficient in Gaucher disease (GD).

In this thesis, bioorthogonal chemistry is combined with correlative light-electron microscopy to selectively label and study pathogenic intracellular bacteria within the host immune cell.

Control of infectious diseases poses continuous challenges for human health.

The power of personalized nutrition lies in being able to conduct clinical research on healthy people while capturing metabolic markers sensitive to the impact of environmental and metabolic stressors (e.g. diet, changing sex hormones and the menstrual cycle).

The way organisms develop from the initial single-cellular state to a complex final assembly like the human body, and how the final body is maintained throughout life, is one of the greatest mysteries and it’s understanding one of the biggest scientific challenges.