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

Consumer societies are a global presence, and marketing practices have spread to all corners of the world. However, the loud and glaring performances of the big advertising companies and the hegemony of shopping malls makes us forget that there are many different markets, and many merchants who have…

In the search for new medicines against diseases such as cancer, a Leiden team has developed a new workflow. This approach combines artificial intelligence (AI) with molecular modelling and is suitable for finding unknown and innovative drug structures, the researchers proved.

Growth hormone profiles are pulsatile and highly variable between individuals, limiting the implementation of mathemathical models to quantify an individual's secretion.

Supervisor: Lizi Xia

Exploring the mechanism of targeted nanoparticle-mediated drug delivery using the zebrafish model

The path to rational drug and dose selection

Beginning teachers often experience difficulties making activating lessons. This study investigates how and if the practical teaching model can offer them a hand in learning to design lessons.

Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease affecting millions of people world-wide.

Research and design are two activities that are becoming increasingly important in the Dutch subjects O&O (‘research and design’) and NLT ('nature, life and technology’). The dissertation of Tessa Vossen (ICLON and Faculty of Science) indicates that teachers and students understand the importance of…

Didactics

The polypept(o)ide hybrid material attracted more and more attention over the past decade by combining the multifunctional characteristics of polypeptides with the shielding characteristics of polypeptoid-pSar possessing similar properties as a shielding material as polvethylene glycol(PEG). Polysarcosine…

The kidneys play a major role in the elimination of drugs. In children, the exact age-related physiological changes underlying kidney function remain largely unknown.

Promotores: Prof.dr. C.A.J. Knibbe, Prof.dr. M. Danhof, Prof.dr. K. Allegaert (Leuven)

Tuberculosis is an infectious disease which is spreaded through the air. It is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis and it led 1.7 million people to death in 2016. This mortarlity rate is concentrated in developing countries such as Indonesia, Philippines, Pakistan, and South Africa. These numbers make…

Drug induced organ toxicity is the main problem of the drug development and drug usage in the clinic. The liver and kidneys are the most sensitive organs towards drug induced toxicity.

C-SIDe project involves a broad selection of associates in solving cybersecurity problems. Security of software systems has emerged as a critical need in our interconnected society. Companies developing software products look for Security-by-Design approaches accommodating security into their software…

Source: Biosens Bioelectron, Volume 74, pp. 233-42 (2015)

PhD defence

PhD defence

We present an extensive study of methods for exactly solving stochastic constraint (optimisation) problems (SCPs) in network analysis. These problems are prevalent in science, governance and industry.

Bruno Munari (1907–1998) was a prolific and influential artist, designer, and writer. Alessandro Colizzi’s study is the first extensive, detailed record of Munari’s graphic design production, and as such provides a substantial base for a full understanding of his oeuvre.

With an emphasis on developing novel miktoarm star polymers termed PeptoMiktoStars, this thesis leverages asymmetric polymeric polypept(o)ide frameworks to advance their effectiveness in delivering hydrophobic drugs and nucleic acids.

Errors are everywhere, and mechanical failures are especially common: buckled grain silos and cracked support columns are, justly, seen as an issue to be avoided.

This doctoral research project in design seeks to shed a light on legibility in the context of visually impaired beginning readers.

How do you ensure that a drug has an effect on the right protein – and nothing else? Chemist Anthe Janssen explored various methods for determining the selectivity of potential medicines. He also looked at the substance BIA 10-2474, after a man died in a French clinical trial in 2016. PhD defence on…

To design the ideal water oxidation catalyst, understanding of the catalytic mechanism and decomposition pathways is essential.

This thesis focuses on data found in the field of computational drug discovery. New insight can be obtained by applying machine learning in various ways and in a variety of domains. Two studies delved into the application of proteochemometrics (PCM), a machine learning technique that can be used to…

Promotores: A.P. IJzerman, H.W.T. van Vlijmen

The authors systematically search and review relevant definitions of Security by Design (SbD) in comparison with Privacy by Design (PbD).

Huda Abi-Fares defended her thesis on 10 January 2017.

Promoter: J.G.E.M.Fraaije, Co-promotor: A. Kros

This dissertation explores new chemical strategies for the synthesis of self-adjuvanting peptide conjugates and immunomodulatory ligands aimed at targeted activation of the immune system.

Didactics

Higher design and engineering educators have different views on what a new or renewed curriculum should entail, content-wise as well as pedagogically. This research aims to describe how these ‘curriculum perspective perceptions’ influence working definitions, end goal formulation, and the scope of results…

Currently, several successful vaccines are available. However, for pathogens with a highly variable genetic composition, and for which serum IgG antibodies are not a useful correlate of protection, effective vaccines are yet to be developed.

LIACS assistant professor Ben van Werkhoven leads the development of software for optimising graphics processing units. By now, version 1.0 of 'Kernel Tuner' is just around the corner. This milestone shows that the software is ready for serious use.

A modern ship design process is subject to a wide variety of constraints such as safety constraints, regulations, and physical constraints.

Chapter 2 describes a post-synthetic methodology to introduce a fluorescent label in highly lipophilic, Pam3Cys based conjugates.

How can the concept of Critical Making be expanded into a general approach that ties the critical methodology of artistic research, and the established concepts of artistic autonomy, together with contemporary creative-technological development?

The GMP Facility facilitates development and production of Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs) and chemical (peptide) synthesis.

Pharmaceutical companies, governments and the general public have become increasingly aware that animal models used in drug testing lack vital aspects to serve as an accurate representation of human biology. As models of the human body should become more physiologically relevant, animal models no longer…

Promotores: J. Kok, M. Chaudron (Chalmers University)

Glycoside hydrolases (glycosidases/GHs) are widely abundant enzymes in all kingdoms of life and are important biocatalysts that catalyze the hydrolysis of glycosidic linkages in oligo/polysaccharides, glycoproteins and glycolipids with tremendous efficiency

Promotor: Huub J.M. de Groot, Co-promotor: Francesco Buda

One in two people will be diagnosed with cancer. World Cancer Day on 4 February raises awareness of the impact of this devastating disease. Leiden University is conducting various studies aimed at preventing and controlling cancer. Below are just a few examples.

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

Promotor: Prof.dr. E.F.A. Deprettere, Co-promoter: Todor P. Stefanov

Microscopic insight on lipid-based nanomedicine in vivo remains limited to the perception of the knowledge that could be obtained: if we interpret only what we see, then we only believe to know. Although believing to know encapsulates an undefined amount of uncertainty in the exploration of lipid-based…

Viral diseases constitute one of the major challenges in modern medicine. Membrane-targeting have broad-spectrum potential and could distinguish viral membranes from the host cell plasma membrane by the difference in membrane curvature.