Promotores: A.H. Meijer, H.P. Spaink

In STAYAHEAD data-intensive approaches are being developed to ”decode the human immunome” with a focus on a global vaccine strategy. They have developed a rapid mass spectrometric test to analyse in real-time large numbers of variants of SARS-CoV-2 and the host immune response, and use these data to…

Researchers at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and Radboud university medical center have been given the green light to deliberately infect volunteers with malaria in order to test a highly promising vaccine on them.

The outbreaks of AIDS and COVID-19 showed clearly how infectious viruses can influence people’s lives. Investigating the changes in the host metabolism may provide a paradigm shift to consider immune-metabolic interactions as therapeutic targets.

PhD defence

Leiden University and Leiden University Medical Center have joined the Netherlands Centre for One Health (NCOH), further strengthening the academic network in which such problems as antimicrobial resistance are studied.

Promotor: Prof.dr. H.P. Spaink, Co-promotor: Prof. dr. A.H. Meijer

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the phenomenon that pathogens become insensitive to the antibiotics that we use against them. A growing number of pathogens is becoming resistant, with methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) as the most famous example. But while the threat of AMR represents a slow-moving…

The Translational Immuno-Pharmacology group works on translating the efficacy of anti-infective therapy from preclinical (e.g. in vivo) to clinical, and is led by Rob van Wijk. Infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, are in constant need of new therapies that work better, faster, and with less risk…

Uncover novel antimicrobials with prospective health benefits for sea turtles.

Researchers from the Netherlands Cancer Institute, the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and Oncode have created a tracking system that can reveal how often cells have divided. This allowed them to find a yet undiscovered population of immune cells: young memory cells that behave like stem cells.…

Tuberculosis causes 1.5 million deaths yearly and anti-tuberculosis therapies are threatened by emergence of drug resistance. Development of innovative drug combinations should be accelerated with the use of translational pharmacological models. Moreover, host-directed therapies (HDT), which stimulate…

Parasitic worms and stomach bacteria suppress immune reactions such as allergic responses. Parasitologist Hermelijn Smits and lung specialist Christian Taube from the LUMC are trying to learn from these micro-organisms.

The Quantitative Pharmacology group headed by Coen van Hasselt focusses on the application of state-of-the-art quantitative pharmacometrics and systems pharmacology modeling combined with translational experimental models to develop personalized treatment strategies for antibiotics and to combat antimicrobial…

What are the host immune defence mechanisms that control intracellular infections and how are these subverted by pathogens?

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?

PhD defence

Supervisor: P.J.J. Hooykaas

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

People who have taken antibiotics in the past three months pay more attention to negative facial expressions, according to research by postdoc Katerina Johnson and assistant professor Laura Steenbergen. This may explain how antibiotics increase the risk of developing depression.

Antibiotic resistance, caused by widespread use of antibiotics, leads to bacterial infections that are difficult, if not impossible, to treat and is a major worldwide health concern.

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The focus of the Antiviral Pharmacology group led by Anne-Grete Märtson is optimizing antiviral therapy for different viral infections by conducting clinical trials and using innovative computational and dynamic laboratory methodologies.

Influenza CD8(+) T-cell epitopes are conserved amongst influenza strains and can be recognized by influenza-specific cytotoxic T-cells (CTLs), which can rapidly clear infected cells. An influenza peptide vaccine that elicits these CTLs would therefore be an alternative to current influenza vaccines,…

New drugs for use as tuberculosis (TB) treatment are needed due to the constrains of classical antibiotics against TB and the rise of antibiotic-resistant strains, making TB a harder and harder disease to treat.

An overview of Quantitative Pharmacology projects

PhD defence

PhD defence

Researchers from Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) have discovered how malaria parasites escape the immune system of mosquitoes. The so-called QC enzyme changes proteins on the outside of the malaria parasite such that the immune cells are unable to recognise the parasite. As a result, the parasite…

The impact of the phenotypic plasticity of P. aeruginosa and the distinct CF lung microenvironments on antibiotic drug effects and resistance remains poorly understood.

In this thesis, I study 1) metabolic alterations in tuberculosis related to wasting syndrome in human patients as well as in rodent and fish animal models. 2) effects of the mutation of the leptin gene on cachexia and diabetes in rodent and zebrafish animal models.

PhD defence

PhD defence

The infectious diseases malaria and tuberculosis are responsible for 2.1 million deaths every year. Leiden researchers are currently testing a new tuberculosis vaccine.

We investigate the molecular basis underlying health and disease and provide answers to existing and emerging health problems. Within this theme, we study diseases ranging from rare genetic disorders to cancer and infectious diseases. We make use of a wide variety of model systems and pursue diverse…

PhD defence

Leiden professor of Cellular Immunology of Parasitic Infections Maria Yazdanbakhsh receives the prestigious NWO Spinoza Prize this year. This, in many ways, border-crossing scientist contributes with her research to more effective vaccines against parasitic infections and better medication for inflammatory…

Bacteria caught red-handed, deeply frozen just as they were about to cause Lyme’s disease. Ariane Briegel is wildly enthusiastic about the wonders she observes thanks to three elements: a freezing technique, a camera-equipped microscope, and AI. ‘It’s fascinating. Every single cell is different.’

Tuberculosis bacteria survive by hiding in our immune cells. In her PhD research, biologist Salomé Muñoz Sánchez explores how boosting the body’s own defenses might outsmart this deadly pathogen. Her work reveals two key proteins that help immune cells destroy the bacteria.

MHC class I and MHC class II molecules present peptides to the immune system to drive proper T cell responses. Pharmacological modulation of T-cell responses can offer treatment options for a range of immune-related diseases.

A COVID-19 vaccine that specifically instructs the immune system to produce T-cells rather than antibodies is shown to provide good protection in a mouse model, Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) researchers report in Nature Communications. According to them, the alternative vaccine may offer a…

Lecture

Studying the impact of urbanisation on the respiratory health of past Dutch populations (1200-1850 CE).

Living systems scale from unicellular microbes to complex multispecies communities that constantly change over time. Within the theme Development & Disease, we enhance our fundamental understanding of development and homeostasis of living cells and systems. We analyze the normal situation and how stresses…

How do lipases in Mycobacterium tuberculosis help the bacteria survive, and can we target them to create new antibiotics?