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…

Key publications of the Analytical BioSciences and Metabolomics group

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.

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…

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.

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

PhD defence

We aim to provide new insights relating to the spectacular multi-cellular life cycle of streptomycetes and other actinobacteria.

Single-celled organisms have stiffer DNA than multicellular lifeforms like humans and rice. Theoretical physicists managed to simulate the folding in full genomes for the first time to reach this conclusion. Publication in Biophysical Journal on February 7.

A group of single-celled organisms organises its DNA in a similar way to higher organisms such as plants, animals, and fungi. However, the way packaged DNA is read out differs between the two related groups, Bram Henneman discovered. PhD defence on 5 December.

Leiden researchers have found minute movements in the laccase enzyme. This discovery could lead to the development of much more efficient biofuel cells. Publication in Biophysical Journal.

Healthy aging is one of the prime goals in today's society and atherosclerosis is among the greatest causes of morbidity in elderly. Cardiovascular disease patients receiving treatment are often of advanced aged and have an aged immune system, which limits translating experimental findings to the pa…

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.P. van Wezel

Advanced fluorescence microscopy techniques have revealed how steroid receptors move inside the nucleus. The results were published by a team from Leiden University and the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, led by IBL-researcher Marcel Schaaf.

This dissertation combines the use of defined microenvironments, high-resolution fluorescence microscopy, and time-resolved analysis, to study intracellular and cellular motility.

Parkinson's disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease in the world. One of its symptoms is the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta.

Promotor: Prof.dr. J. Kuiper

The research described in this thesis focused on the use of bioorthogonal antigens to investigate immunological processes in antigen presenting cells. Bioorthogonal antigens are antigenic proteins produced through recombinant expression in a methionine auxotrophic E. coli strain.

Promotores: B. van de Water; P. Hogendoorn; J. Bovée Co-Promotor: E.H.J. Danen

This thesis describes our search to identify and understand possible regulatory mechanisms of integrin α6β4 in cell-matrix adhesion and intracelular signaling.

On 23 April 2021, Professor Alfred Vertegaal from the Department of Cell and Chemical Biology at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) delivered his inaugural lecture ‘Unraveling and exploiting cellular communication codes’. Vertegaal used the opportunity to describe how research in the field…

The transition from single cells to multicellular organisms was a key step in evolution. Researchers from Leiden and Amsterdam developed a mathematical model that explains how this transition may have come about. They suspect cooperating cells may correct each other’s mistakes. Publication in eLife…

Publication by: Amanda Foks, Gijs van Puijvelde, Jolien Wolbert, Mara Kröner, Vanessa Frodermann, Thomas van der Heijden, Peter van Santbrink, Louis Boon, Ilze Bot and Johan Kuiper. Cardiovascular Research. 2016;111(3):252-261.

Promotor: Prof.dr. H.P. Spaink Co-promotor: Dr. B.E. Snaar

Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), as a partner in the reNEW consortium, is once again receiving tens of millions of euros for research into new treatments based on stem cells. The collaboration will receive a total of €150 million to develop new therapies in regenerative medicine.

Researchers from the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) have successfully used stem cell gene therapy to treat a baby with the severe congenital immune disorder SCID. An important milestone: it is the first time stem cell gene therapy of Dutch origin has been administered to a patient, and also…

Leiden and Austrian researchers have succeeded in further uncovering how a plant cell passes on the growth hormone auxin in a directional manner to the next cell. Three proteins that cling together in a bunch appear to be essential for this important transport process. ‘This discovery solves a crucial…

Researchers from the Leiden Institute of Chemistry show proof of principle that live-cell structural changes and metabolic processes can be followed in real time with NMR spectroscopy. They performed their study on photosynthetic green algae that are metabolically flexible and can sustain energy generation…

How can we prevent drug-induced liver and kidney damage? PhD candidates Marije Niemeijer and Lukas Wijaya investigated what happens in the cells during the onset of this damage: a stress response. Both focused on a different subtopic and made some interesting discoveries.

The Museums, Collections & Society (MCS) group consists of staff members, all of whom have a strong link to the Museums and Collections programme of the Faculty of Humanities and the Heritage and Museum programme of the Faculty of Archaeology.

A more efficient solar panel sounds great. But what if these new panels consume more toxic materials, or their production consumes a lot of energy? Leiden environmental scientists, together with colleagues from the Fraunhofer ISE, address this multifaceted question in a new publication in the prestigious…

About nine million people worldwide contract tuberculosis each year. Research into new treatment for this disease has received fresh stimulus with more efficient techniques and a new understanding of how the tuberculosis bacteria works.

Promotor: B. vd Water, T. Schmidt, Co-Promotor: E.H.J. Danen

Particles are omnipresent in biopharmaceutical products. In protein-based therapeutics such particles are generally associated with impurities, either derived from the drug product itself (e.g. protein aggregates), or from extrinsic contaminations (e.g. cellulose fibers).

Promotores: Prof.dr. H.P. Spaink & Prof.dr. P.C.W. Hogendoorn, Co-promotor: Dr. M.J.M. Schaaf

Scattering of light in the presence of nano-structured materials, i.e. with features in the order of the wavelength of the light or smaller, reveals details of how light interacts with matter at the nanoscale.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is one of the most pressing challenges that humanity faces in the coming decades.

Now and then we organise book launches to present the latest publications, both academic and popular, in our broad field.

Marietje Beemsterboer defended her thesis on 12 June 2018 (in Dutch)

A Jurist's Travelogue

The following dissertation reconstructs Paul Natorp's philosophical psychology. It argues that psychology's main object is the lived experience of concrete subjects, understood as a transcendental structure of logical-reflexive conditions for the recognition, appropriation, and evaluation of objective…

Seasonal influenza vaccines provide protection against matching influenza A virus (IAV) strains mainly through the induction of neutralizing serum IgG antibodies. However, these antibodies fail to confer a protective effect against mismatched IAV. This lack of efficacy against heterologous influenza…