The World Food Programme (WFP) uses mobile technology to predict potential famine more rapidly. Leiden University's Centre for Innovation is developing a Leiden University online course for professionals to learn the technique.

On 11 and 12 October Jorrit Rijpma spoke on Mobility and Security at the Batumi State University and the Tbilisi State University.

The main aim of this thesis was to unravel the signaling and regulatory networks that drive tumor cell migration during breast cancer metastasis.

In this thesis, we used genetically engineered mouse models and a variety of cell-culture based assays to identify genes and pathways that are involved in the development and treatment of invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC).

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…

What do refugees use their mobile phones for? And what does it mean for aid workers in reception camps? The Leiden Centre for Innovation studied this issue together with researchers from Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and Data & Society.

It appears that interest groups are increasingly finding their way to court or other ways of making use of the legal system as a means for societal change. Over the summer, Rowie Stolk, PhD candidate at the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law was one of the speakers at the workshop ‘Legal…

Chemist Roxanne Kieltyka has received an ERC Starting Grant of 2 million euros. In her lab, she creates gels that mimic the instructive material that supports cells in our body. With the grant, she aims to make these gels stiff and tough, and to create a bio-printed miniature heart ventricle.

The programme focuses on the medieval dynamics of intellectual life in the Rhineland and the Low countries, nowadays divided over five countries (Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands) but one cultural region in the later Middle Ages.

This dissertation contains four works during my PhD. Different biomaterials have been designed based on coiled-coil peptides. These biomaterials have a range of applications, inclusing drug delivery, cell sorting to cell-cell fusion.

Cardiovascular diseases are a leading cause of death worldwide, and better models are urgently needed for disease progression studies and drug development.

Multicellular giant algae Chara species have been widely used in physiological studies for decades.

Carbohydrates are present on the surface of bacteria making them suitable antigen candidates for vaccine development. This thesis deals with the synthesis of two carbohydrate-based components; the capsular polisaccharide of S. aureus type 5 and teichoic acids from staphilococci and enterococci speci…

PhD defence

The overall theme of this thesis is to complement the electrochemical data acquired in fuel cell research with in situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS).

Biophysicist Rolf Harkes has developed a microscope to optically localize individual molecules in living cells. It improves monitoring of diseases like cancer and Parkinson’s at the cellular level. Defende PhD thesis on t13 January 2016.

Prison staff are working under high pressure. The current proposal for cell sharing is the final straw. Associate Professor Esther van Ginneken appeared on Dutch news programme ‘Nieuwsuur’: ‘Serious incidents have occurred, including the murder of a cellmate.’

Embryonic stem cells have the remarkable ability to develop into any type of cell. On their way to become for example a liver or a heart cell, they must repeatedly decide between alternative developmental paths. How they make these decisions is largely unknown. An international team of biophysicists…

Promotor: Prof.dr. J. Kuiper, Co-promotor: Saskia C.A. de Jager

The focus of the described research in this thesis is on the oxidative stress response (Nrf2 pathway). The aim of the research presented in this thesis is to obtain more information concerning microRNAs which are involved in the Nrf2 pathway, to determine and evaluate the application of microRNAs for…

Leiden molecular cell biologists in the research group of Annemarie Meijer have discovered novel early macrophage-specific genes in zebrafish, including a signal transducer pivotal for the migration of macrophages in the innate immune response to bacterial infection. Their findings were published on…

Leiden chemists, together with colleagues at the University of York (UK) and Technion (Israel) have discovered a small, sugar-like molecule that maintains the integrity of tissue around a tumour during cancer. This molecule prevents tumour cells from spreading from the primary cancer site to colonise…

With the necessary measures, researchers restart their work in various laboratories. The Leiden Cell Observatory is one of the places where scientists resume their lab work.

When the immune system attacks cancer, the tumour modifies itself to escape the immune reaction. Researchers at LUMC published on this subject in Nature on 28 June.

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…

Three speakers, three fascinating science stories and a well-filled lecture hall. The Niko Tinbergen Lecture had a successful restart on 10 December 2019.

In 2009-2010, the notion of a more ‘assertive’ China emerged in Western discourse, a viewpoint that China vehemently rejects. Nevertheless, especially after Xi Jinping rose to power in 2012, it is clear that China has abandoned its long-held foreign policy doctrine of ‘keeping a low profile.’

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…

A multiple isotope approach to human-animal dynamics in the Lesser Antilles across the historical divide

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.

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…