This paper describes two synthetic lipid models designed to replace human stratum corneum (SC) in studies of the impact of volatile organic chemicals on the molecular organization of the skin barrier lipids.

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How do Humanitarian Response Organizations (HROs) and Virtual & Technical Communities (V&TCs) collaboratively govern disaster sensemaking processes, and what challenges shape the effectiveness of these collaborations between 2010 and 2016?

The organ in the Great Auditorium in the Academy Building has been played at walk-in concerts and University celebrations since 1998.

Promotor: G.R. de Snoo

Great Auditorium Organ Foundation is a Public Benefit Organisation (Algemeen Nut Beogende Instelling, ANBI)

This volume challenges the idea that the development of ‘democracy’ is a story of rise and progress at all. It is rather a story of continuous but never completely satisfying attempts of interpreting the rule of the people.

Throughout all domains of life, from bacteria and archaea to eukaryotes, genomes adopt well-organized three-dimensional structures that can change in space and time to accommodate preferred transcriptional programs for environmental adaptation, the maintenance of cellular identity and differentiation…

The long term goal of the Biophysical Organic Chemistry/SSNMR group, headed by Prof. Huub de Groot, is to reach an understanding of structure, dynamics and functional mechanisms of membrane proteins and self-organized biological assemblies and to translate this knowledge into new concepts for nano-devices,…

How do leadership behaviour repertoires take shape in public organizations?

Treatment with special stem cells seems to be a good option for suppressing the immune system in organ transplants. Researchers are trying to learn from processes that take place in the human body during pregnancy.

Charisma K. Lepcha (PI, Sikkim University), Pradyut Guha (co-PI, Sikkim University), Rajib Sutradhar (co-PI, Christ University Bangalore) and Erik de Maaker (Leiden University) have been awarded a two-year grant of USD 18.000 to conduct research on the impact of ‘green farming’ on the sensitive mountain…

The research in the Biosyn group is focused on the design, synthesis and function of the four major types of biomolecules: nucleic acids, carbohydrates, peptides and lipids and hybrid structures thereof. These biomolecules and their derivatives are used in drug discovery and chemical biology, to develop…

Stars like the sun are born in large molecular clouds existing from gas and dust. During the formation process, the chemical composition of the material can be altered drastically by the changing physical conditions.

Complex Organic Molecules (COMs) have been detected in objects across different stages of stellar evolution.

Mechanical forces are known to play an important role in bacterial colonies. In this dissertation, we study the self-organization at various stages of growing bacterial colonies, and focus on the mechanical effects of cell growth.

The central theme of the NWO-project ‘The Promise of Organization’ is the evolution of political organization during the 19th century. We focus on the enthusiasm, arguments and concrete activities of the organizers as well as the criticism offered by opponents of modern political organization.

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is an important bulk chemical that is used in various industrial processes. More than 95% of the H2O2 used in industry is made via the anthraquinone process during which a large amount of energy is going to waste.

Our in-house human skin equivalents contain all stratum corneum (SC) barrier lipid classes, but have a reduced level of free fatty acids (FAs), of which a part is mono-unsaturated. These differences lead to an altered SC lipid organization and thereby a reduced barrier function compared to human skin.…

My research focusses on site-specific compositional and performance practices of music for organ and electronics and their musical-spatial values.

This study discusses the position of the monasteries in pre-1950s Tibetan societies and how that position was informed by Buddhist monastic ideology.

Growing public backlash against international organizations (IOs) and attacks of national political elites on the rule of law increasingly challenge governance by IOs.

Regenerative medicine is a new way of treatment that helps impaired cells, tissues, and organs work well again. We do this by repairing, replacing, or restoring cells, tissues, and organs after damage from illness or injury. This includes treating long-term diseases such as diabetes, kidney diseases,…

Petra van der Bekerom, Joris van der Voet, and Johan Christensen, three assistant professors at Leiden University, conducted a large-scale survey experiment about whether citizens are more negative about failing service delivery than private organizations.

Organic amendments applied to agricultural fields can partially offset our carbon emissions to the atmosphere and improve the resilience of agriculture to the effects of climate change. Driving these benefits, however, are complex and poorly understood interactions between organic amendment properties,…

Bacteria often experience external challenges, such as changes in environmental conditions or attacks by bacteriophages.

The Future of Multilateralism addresses current challenges and future perspectives of international and regional organizations. It aims to uncover how stable the foundations of global cooperation really are, particularly in the light of the latest unilateral and protectionist practices of international…

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The lipid matrix in the stratum corneum (SC), the upper layer of the skin, plays a critical role in the skin barrier. The matrix consists of ceramides (CERs), cholesterol (CHOL) and free fatty acids (FFAs).

Netherton Syndrome (NTS) is a rare genetic skin disease caused by mutations in the serine protease inhibitor Kazal-type 5 gene, which encodes the lympho-epithelial Kazal-type-related inhibitor. NTS patients have a profound impaired skin barrier function. Because SC lipids play a crucial role in the…

The lipids in the uppermost layer of the skin, the stratum corneum (SC), play an important role in the skin barrier function. The three main SC lipid classes are ceramides (CER), cholesterol and free fatty acids.

Promotor: J. A. Bouwstra

It is the aim of this project to better understand how the physical properties of lipids influences the structure and overall barrier function of the skin.

Do recent developments in the European security architecture signal the end of multilateral cooperation, or the beginning of a new era with emerging forms of international security collaboration?

Public management scholars have long debated public and private sector differences. However, the generalizability of empirical results has been limited due to the shortage of cross-national studies.

Every organisms in the tree of life faces the same challenge: the length of its DNA exceeds the volume of the cell it needs to fit in. Several strategies have evolved to solve this problem, one of them being the expression of proteins that bind and organize the DNA.

Physicians and researchers of the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and Leiden University are working on therapies for restoring damaged organs such as hearts and kidneys. They are even trying to construct tailor-made organs. Read more on this topic in the new science dossier on Vascular and Regenerative…

Large areas of space are filled by molecular clouds that consist of gas and dust grains that are the remnants of dead stars. When these clouds start collapsing, the decreasing temperature and increasing density cause gas particles to start accreting onto dust grain surfaces.

Beyond Empires explores the complexity of empire building from the point of view of self-organized networks, rather than from the point of view of the central state.

In this Ph.D. thesis we study the interaction of low energy electrons with thin materials, namely layered materials (graphene, hexagonal boron nitride, molybdenum disulfide) and organic films. At these low energies the quantum mechanical wavelength of the electron wave function is in the order of a…

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.

In this study, we evaluated the influence of supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) spray drying conditions, in the absence of organic solvent, on the ability to produce dry protein/trehalose formulations at 1:10 and 1:4 (w/w) ratios.