Natural product inspired antibiotics to address resistance

German scientists and NASA have developed a bacteria-killing coating for space toilets. With this coating they hope to protect astronauts in space stations from pathogens. Professor of Biological chemistry Nathaniel Martin sheds light on the discovery: 'You don't expect nasty bacteria up there, but…

Through his project we will unravel the global regulatory networks that control gene expression in Streptomyces bacteria and allow them to properly respond to major changes in the environment; we will then harness this knowledge to activate and identify novel antibiotics

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The prevalence of obesity (BMI >40 kg/m2) has increased rapidly over the recent years, not only in adults, but also in children and adolescents.

Mechanisms fro drug resistance

This project will construct an inventory of possible conceptions of the resistance of the world to scientists’ claims and theories.

Breeding for resistance becomes more and more important because we want to reduce the use of pesticides. A fast and cheap alternative can be to make use of morphological or chemical markers.

Plants are colonized by an astounding number of microorganisms that can provide different life-support functions, including nutrient acquisition and protection against (a)biotic stresses like drought or pathogen attack.

An international consortium of research groups is aiming to develop novel antibiotics against the tuberculosis bacteria and two other deadly bacteria. The European Union has awarded a total of 18 million euros to the RespiriTB and RespiriNTM projects. Researchers from the Leiden University Medical Centre…

Though tuberculosis can be cured today, new resistant strains of the bacteria are becoming a growing problem in the medical world. Biologist Annemarie Meijer and her colleagues are studying resistance to this disease. Their research is already yielding several interesting clues that could help the development…

The clinical potential of applying synthetic lethality to cancer treatment is famously demonstrated by the BRCA1/PARP1 paradigm: a tumor specific defect in BRCA1 – a component of the DNA double-strand break (DSB) repair pathway homologous recombination (HR) – results in a remarkable sensitivity to PARP1…

Can drugs that target host signaling pathways be used to eradicate antibiotic-resistant bacteria?

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.

Timely, adequate and optimal treatment of infectious diseases is essential for the survival of patients with bacterial infections (Surviving Sepsis campaign).

Prof. Gilles van Wezel and Prof. Mike Richardson of the Institute of Biology Leiden received €1.4 million to find new antibiotics.

Leiden Biology student Lukas Kiefer has won the Unilever Research Prize 2018 for his research into efficient production of a new antibiotic. Kiefer: ‘I want to make biological medicines available to people in need.'

Streptomycetes are similar to moulds, but these bacteria live in the soil. They are very popular in biotechnology because they produce a great many antibiotics and enzymes. Gilles van Wezel will be using his Vici subsidy to study ways of increasing their production.

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.

What makes some international organisations more likely to succumb to crises where others manage to survive or even thrive? And what can international organisations do to become resilient and withstand existential challenges? Political Scientist Gisela Hirschmann (Leiden University) studied the example…

Almost fifty scientists and twenty companies will be working on developing new antibiotics and alternatives for antibiotics use. NWO and the Ministry of Health, Wellbeing and Sport will together invest close to seven million euros in this research. Scientists from Leiden University and LUMC will be…

The Division of Systems Pharmacology and Pharmacy (SPP) aims to develop precision medicine approaches to characterise and predict variation in treatment response and enhance translational drug development strategies.

Which plant leaf characteristics are involved in thrips resistance in tomato?

β-Lactamases are enzymes that can break down β-lactam substrates, such as antibiotics, preventing the use of these antibiotics for the treatment of various infectious diseases. However, some compounds, β-lactamase inhibitors, can block these enzymes allowing for possible treatments using a combination…

Can thrips resistance in strawberry be explained based on secondary metabolite profiles and plant morphological traits?

We have examined sequences from the ligand-binding domain of the nicotinic acetyl choline receptor (nAChR) in 148 vertebrate species. We are in interested in this receptor because the α-neurotoxins of many venomous snakes binds to this receptor in its location at the neuromuscular junction in all ve…

The ongoing increase in antimicrobial resistance combined with the low discovery of novel antibiotics is a serious threat to our health care.

Edith Schippers, Minister of Health, will be investing six million euros over the coming four years to boost research on new antibiotics. The programme will be set up by several different parties, including the Leiden Centre for Antimicrobial Research.

Inactivating mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes predispose to several types of cancer.

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.

Why do communities form militias to defend themselves against violence during civil war? Using original interviews with former combatants and civilians and archival material from extensive fieldwork in Mozambique, Corinna Jentzsch (Leiden University Institute of Political Science) explains the timing,…

During the Leiden Science Family Day, you can take part in various workshops. You can also watch various demonstrations. Where will you go?

Can animal venoms yield novel antimicrobial peptides?

We aim to develop a microfluidic platform that can parallelize testing the performance and characteristics of pure, mixed and environmental bacteriophage samples.

An interdisciplinary collection of the best international scholarship on Muslim youth.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are a major problem worldwide. Molecular biologist Changsheng Wu explored innovative methods of developing new antibiotics more simply and more easily. He also discovered a new type of antibiotic.

The effective treatment of tuberculosis (TB) remains a major challenge to global health.

In this thesis, we used genetically engineered mouse models to identify genes and pathways that are involved in ILC formation and in the development of resistance to FGFR-targeted therapy.

We aim to engineer streptomycetes to fully exploit their potential for natural product productions, by a rational design and evolution approach.

Bachelor and Master students of all chemistry related studies are more than welcome to take part in our research activities. We have projects on design and synthesis of biologically relevant compounds within an ongoing research project. Supervision, following the apprentice/teacher model, is one of…

Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, may be used as an alternative treatment option when antibiotics fail. Leiden researchers have studied the structure and function of a novel bacteriophage that could be used to treat one of the WHO bacterial strains of concern where new treatments are urgently…

Rosan Kuin started her PhD in July at the LACDR under supervision of prof. Gerard van Westen and Dr. Meindert Lamers. She completed a BSc. in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the VU University in Amsterdam in 2017. After that she started two master programs, Drug Discovery & Safety with a specialization in…

In Microbial Sciences, we perform multidisciplinary research to understand the structure and function of microbes at all levels of biological organization, from small molecules and cellular structures at atomic resolution to multicellular communities.

Fungal food spoilage often starts with a contamination with spores. Experimental data strongly indicate the existence of subpopulations of spores with different levels of resistance to preservation methods.

A vaccine based on sugar coats does have the potential to combat a multi-resistant staphylococcus. That is what Jeroen Codée and his colleagues from Utrecht state in Nature. In doing so, they are contradicting the earlier conclusions of German colleagues.

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

How do mycobacteria subvert the defenses of host immune cells?

Evolution & Biodiversity is one of the four research themes of the Institute of Biology Leiden.

Control of infectious diseases poses continuous challenges for human health.