To address the fundamental questions of how life on Earth emerged and how common life may be in the Universe, it is crucial to know the chemical composition of the planet-forming material.

Promotor: E. F. van Dishoeck, Co-promotor: C. Walsh

The chemical and structural heterogeneity of toxoid vaccines makes their analysis challenging. However, detailed insights on a molecular level can be obtained by mass spectrometry.

Research at the BPOC/SSNMR group is comprised of the following research themes:

Cancer is considered the silent pandemic of the 21st century and the second leading cause of death worldwide.

Promotor: M.T.M. Koper, Co-promotor: L. Juurlink

This thesis aims to improve the detection from ultra-weak single emitter by enhancing their emission properties with plasmonic nanostructures. We exploit the wet-chemically synthesized single crystalline gold nanorods (GNRs) as our basic frameworks in the whole studies, simply because of their unique…

Promotor: Prof.dr. I.A.G. Snellen, C.U. Keller

Assessing and implementing new diagnostics strategies for stratifying patients

The focus of this thesis is how stars like our Sun and planets like Jupiter, Saturn, and Earth are formed.

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

Source: Org Biomol Chem, Volume 13, Issue 8, pp. 2407-22 (2015)

Promotor: P. J. J. Hooykaas, Co-promotor: R. Offringa

Promotores: J. Jonkers, K.E. de Visser

Self-assembly is an abundant process in nature and is vital to many processes in living organisms.

Animal models suggest that the chemokine ligand 2/CC-chemokine receptor 2 (CCL2/CCR2) axis plays an important role in the development of inflammatory diseases. However, CCR2 antagonists have failed in clinical trials because of a lack of efficacy.

We study the interplay of topology and geometry with chirality for several passive and active systems, employing both analytical and numerical methods.

The Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) of Leiden University proudly establishes the Blaise Pascal chair. The chair applies for one year and is meant to strengthen the cooperation of the Leiden computer science research with foreign institutes.

The ambition of the Medical Systems Biophysics and Bioengineering group led by Alireza Mashaghi is to develop and use physics and engineering concepts and tools for pathophysiology, diagnostics and therapy.

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

Develop EPR instrumentation and methodology to investigate intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs).

Promotor: A.P. IJzerman Co-promotor: L.H. Heitman

Quantifying physical activity (using accelerometers) and combining the frequency and intensity of activities with health data (brain MRI, traditional clinical parameters and metabolomics) is of utmost importance to monitor mobility and health among older individuals and study health promotion during…

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), one of the largest families of membrane proteins, are responsive to a diverse set of physiological endogenous ligands including hormones and neurotransmitters.

Multiple stars, that is two or more stars composing a gravitationally bound system, are common in the universe.

This thesis focusses on the temperature structure in protoplanetary disks. The relation between structures seen in the dust and gas-phase molecules is investigated.

Research in the Lars Jeuken group focusses on redox-active proteins and membranes enzymes, aiming to understand bacterial respiration at the molecular level for the development of antimicrobials and semi-artificial photo-synthetic cells.

Kinase inhibitors are key therapeutic agents, particularly in oncology, yet their clinical efficacy is often hampered by off-target effects and limited understanding of their cellular target profiles.

Some species of proteins which can form liquid-like condensates, also exhibit growth into fibers (or fibrils). One particularly interesting set of such proteins are those that are associated with neurodegeneration in which the fiber growth may be related to the pathological fibrils observed in disea…

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.

Invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) is the second most common type of breast cancer.

Source: Structure , Volume 22, Issue 8, pp. 1120-1139 (2014)

My work focuses on a class of astronomical objects called protoplanetary disks.

Until the 1990s, the only known planets were those in our Solar System. Three decades later, several thousand exoplanets have been discovered orbiting stars other than the Sun, and substantial efforts have been made to explore these strange new worlds through spectroscopic analyses of their atmosphe…

Planets are formed in disks of gas and dust around young stars.

Metabolomics is a powerful tool that can provide a comprehensive insight into the complexity of human biology and the pathophysiology of diseases. By analyzing the metabolome, which refers to the complete set of small (endogenous) molecules (with a mass <1500 Da) present within a given biological system,…

The studies presented in the work show the potential of the integrative use of biophysical data in defining the structural basis of protein interactions.

For each living organism health is ensured by correct functioning of its cells. Cells therefore have elaborate methods for regulation of their proteins.

Source: J Med Chem (2015)

This thesis focuses on protoplanetary disks: flattened structures of gas and dust around young stars in which planets are expected to form and grow.

Promotor: Prof.dr. E.F. van Dishoeck, Co-Promotor: M.R. Hogerheijde

A large diversity of exoplanetary systems has been found, but it is still unclear what drives this diversity.

The mechanism of the electrochemical reduction of dioxygen by a mononuclear pyridylalkylamine copper complex was investigated (see picture). It was shown that in neutral aqueous solution dioxygen undergoes stepwise reduction, wherein hydrogen peroxide plays a key role. The rate constants determined…

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.

Solute carrier (SLC) transporters are a large and diverse class of relatively understudied transmembrane proteins.

.

The quantum nature of matter and light has grown into a broad and fruitful research field for theorists and experimentalists alike. It combines foundational research with toward applications, the most well known of which is the quantum computer.

Adenosine is an endogenous ligand which exerts its action by activating adenosine receptors (ARs), while its circulating levels are controlled via a variety of mechanism and proteins, amongst others the equilibrative nucleoside transporters (ENTs).

In my research, I used a comparative wood anatomical approach to address wood evolution of the (largely) tropical flowering plant families Apocynaceae and Sapotaceae.

This thesis describes the structural and biochemical characterization of the β-lactamase BlaC from Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), and the Alr and YlmE proteins from Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2).Mtb is the main cause of tuberculosis.