The master’s specialisation Biology and Business Studies at Leiden University bridges science and business development by focusing on areas such as technology management, innovation, entrepeneurship, operations, and decision making.

Molecular materials have been a subject of interest in fundamental research and applications for decades, and have been studied as bulk crystals, (thin) films and as individual molecules, due to the large variety in their properties. This dissertation explores pentacene crystals near the two-dimensional…

Phosphorylation affects all four major biomolecules – proteins, lipids, carbohydrates and nucleic acids – and plays a pivotal role in the most fundamental cellular functions.

Streptomyces present a valuable platform for natural product discovery. Lugdunomycin is a novel angucycline-derived polyketide from Streptomyces sp QL37, with unprecedented skeleton and antimicrobial activity.

Despite being the second largest transmembrane protein family after GPCRs, the SLC superfamily has only gained significant attention in early drug development over the past decade.

Neurodegenerative diseases pose a large medical and societal challenge. The etiology of these diseases is still poorly understood, which makes drug discovery for these diseases difficult.

Engineering an efficient microbial enzymatic polyethylene degradation pathway via an innovative combination of biochemistry and computational biology tools for enzyme discovery and characterization.

Promotor: Prof.dr. H.V.J. Linnartz, Co-Promotores: S. Ioppolo, H.M. Cuppen

The CMCB brings together microbial cell biology expertise in Leiden. It aims at optimal resonance between the groups and maximal exploitation of the available infrastructure and to develop innovative cross-boundary technology platforms.

Lecture

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.J. Kroes

Promotor: Prof.dr. J. den Hertog

The master’s specialisation Biology and Science Communication and Society at Leiden University bridges the gap between experts and the public by combining high quality research in biology with extensive training in science communication.

Promotor: G.F.A. Kersten, W. Jiskoot, Co-promotor: B. Metz

This research delves into a region of space known as the interstellar medium (ISM), which is essentially the area between the stars filled with gas and dust.

Atoms and molecules are the basic units of matter. If we keep dividing a bar of gold or a glass of water into smaller parts, at the end we are left with a single gold atom or a water molecule.

Promotor: G.P. van Wezel, Co-promotor: D. Claessen

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…

Before the large scale use of renewable energy sources can be implemented in our society, the storage of electrical energy needs to be tackled. Storage the energy as hydrogen via the reduction of protons is a good option.

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…

This thesis describes biochemical investigations of glucocerebrosidase (GBA), the lysosomal β- glucosidase that is deficient in Gaucher disease (GD).

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.

PhD defence

Mission: The Environmental Biology department aims to increase the scientific understanding of how current and emerging anthropogenic threats affect biodiversity and ecosystem services. Through this understanding they facilitate strategic management of natural resources by addressing urgent challenges…

Metal complexes and 2D materials like graphene were combined to produce structures that can function as sensors.

Promotor: Prof.dr. E.F. van Dishoeck, Co-Promotor: G.J. Herczeg

In this research group, led by Dr. Joost Beltman, the aim is to employ mathematical and computational dynamical modelling approaches in order to quantitatively and mechanistically understand the dynamical behaviour and regulation of intracellular networks of genes, proteins and metabolites as well as…

The Science faculties of Universitas Indonesia (UI) and the Universiteit Leiden signed agreements on Tuesday April 12 that will strengthen cooperation between the Faculties. The agreements were signed at the closing of a two day visit of a delegation from Indonesia. The delegation, which was led by…

The research described in this thesis centered on retaining exo-β-glucosidases implicated in health and disease, in particular the human inherited lysosomal storage disorder, Gaucher disease (GD).

Promotor: J. A. Bouwstra

Neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease (PD), are increasing in prevalence due to the aging population. Despite extensive study, these diseases are still not fully understood and the lack of personalised treatment options that can target the cause of the diseases, rather than the symptoms,…

Worldwide resurgence of pertussis necessitates the need for improvement of pertussis vaccines and vaccination strategies.

ISBA2025

The thesis explores how interstellar chemistry evolves as a function of time and changing physical architectures during the formation of stars.

Learning from nature and utilizing microbial biodiversity to identify and characterize enzymes for degradation and upcycling of plastics and other polymeric materials.

An Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) is a highly luminous region at the center of a galaxy, powered by the accretion into a supermassive black hole and emitting energy from radio waves to gamma rays, often outshining the host galaxy.

The explosive radiation and diversification of the advanced snakes (superfamily Colubroidea) was associated with changes in all aspects of the shared venom system. Morphological changes included the partitioning of the mixed ancestral glands into two discrete glands devoted for production of venom ormucous…

The electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is an essential half-reaction for the utilization of hydrogen as a sustainable fuel, via the conversion of hydrogen to electrons and protons facilitated by the ORR. In the most common fuel cells, the ORR is requires high loadings of non-abundant platinum…

Supervisor: P.J.J. Hooykaas Co-Supervisor: R. Offringa

We study cell-fate decision-making using embryonic stem cells as a model system. Stem cells integrate a large number of cues to direct their development into a great variety of cell types.

Synthesis and application of chemical biology tools to study immunomodulatory signaling lipids.

LUMC Technology Focus Area (TFA) Data Analytics is een samenwerkingsverband van verschillende onderzoeksgroepen in het LUMC die nieuwe kwantitatieve en computationele methodologie ontwikkelen voor biomedisch en klinisch onderzoek.

Promotores: Prof.dr. H. S. Overkleeft, Prof.dr. G. A. van der Marel

Drug development is a time- and resource-consuming process that starts with the discovery and validation of a (protein) target that contributes to pathogenesis or disease progression.

The dissociative chemisorption of methane on metal surfaces is of fundamental and practical interest, being a rate-limiting step in the steam reforming process. The reaction is best modeled with quantum dynamics calculations, but these are currently not guaranteed to produce accurate results because…

For a successful implementation of an educational reform, teachers need to regard the proposal as being practical. I used a modular, success-oriented approach to make a context-based reform practical for implemtentation in Duthc biology education. educational reform, modular, teachers, biology, success-oriented,…

In this thesis, the discovery and optimization is described of chemical tools to study the N-acylethanolamine (NAE) biosynthetic pathway.