Pharmacogenetics is nowadays increasingly incorporated in the clinic to better predict pharmacokinetics and optimize dosing regimens of drug treatments. While this approach has been successful and improved our prediction of drug metabolism, drug levels within patients may still commonly deviate between…

Exploiting metabolic vulnerabilities to identify anticancer compounds in zebrafish synthetic lethality screens.

The outbreaks of AIDS and COVID-19 showed clearly how infectious viruses can influence people’s lives. Investigating the changes in the host metabolism may provide a paradigm shift to consider immune-metabolic interactions as therapeutic targets.

TRANSVAC is a collaborative infrastructure project funded by the European Commission (EC), initially under the 7th Framework Programme (FP7) and currently under Horizon 2020. The project is a joint effort of leading European groups working in the field of vaccine development, and is coordinated by…

PhD at Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens - France

The overall aim of CAM-PaC is to contribute to solving the socioeconomic and health challenges of PDAC by an integrative and systematic functional analysis of pancreatic cancer candidate genes. CAM-PaC will develop novel cellular and animal models, as well as novel strategies to analyse and integrate…

Medical Biochemistry is a section of the Leiden Institute of Chemistry at Leiden University. The section is headed by Prof. Dr. Hans Aerts.

Through metabolism, biochemical processes give rise to the complexity of life. Acquired and inborn errors in metabolism underlie many diseases occurring in man. The challenge for present day medical biochemistry is to find, and integrate, pieces of information at molecular, cell and organismal level…

Can we establish a new quality control system for herbal medicines that is based on bioactivity rather than a few abundant chemicals?

Through metabolism, biochemical processes give rise to the complexity of life. Acquired and inborn errors in metabolism underlie many diseases occurring in man. The challenge for present day medical biochemistry is to find, and integrate, pieces of information at molecular, cell and organismal level…

In this thesis, I study 1) metabolic alterations in tuberculosis related to wasting syndrome in human patients as well as in rodent and fish animal models. 2) effects of the mutation of the leptin gene on cachexia and diabetes in rodent and zebrafish animal models.

A research into the consumption experience and consumption behaviour.

In order to gain a better insight into the basis of the rapid jasmonic acid (JA)-mediated stress response, an integrated approach using a targeted high-resolution mass spectrometry-based (HRMS) platform, was conducted to monitor the metabolism of JA using the model system of cell suspension cultures…

A major goal of ABS research is to overcome one of the major bottle-necks in metabolomic research: the lack of a high-throughput infrastructure in which thousands of samples can be processed in a standardized and cost-effective way (max. a few tens of Euro’s per sample for a full metabolome profile).…

Overkleeft

Zebrafish is an excellent model organism for studying various human diseases. Due to opaqueness of the adult phase, in vivo studies are restricted to early embryonic stages. This raises the need for rapid sensitive and non-invasive in vivo imaging methods to follow developmental processes, not only…

Research projects

PhD at Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Department, University of Malaga - Spain

This thesis aimed to investigate the impact of exposure dynamics, relative contributions of ENPs(particle) and ENPs(ion), and dosing regimens on the toxicity of ENPs varying in different physico-chemical properties, on the composition and functioning of soil microbial communities.

Research lines within the Pharmacy group:

Key publications of the Biomedical Microscale Analytics group.

PUMA aims at composing a geological map of the urban mine of Amsterdam for a selection of metals. Where are main deposits of copper, iron and aluminium located, when will they become available for secondary production, in what state and shape are they?

Development of Natural Resource for New Medicines

Dr. at Max Planck Institute for chemical Ecology, Jena - Germany

The master’s specialisation BioTherapeutics at Leiden University is a two-year programme which trains students in research in specific drug delivery techniques. The programme also examines the development of new therapeutic approaches to treat immune-based disorders, such as atherosclerosis, metabolic…

PhD defence

Development of micro-scale analytical tools to be used to address relevant biomedical questions in the field of neuroscience, and other application areas intrinsically dealing with small sample amounts.

We aim to unravel the complex and intertwining regulatory systems that control development and antibiotic production in streptomycetes.

How does the extracellular matrix coordinate endothelial cell behavior during angiogenesis, and how do metabolic waste-products and matrix-degrading enzymes produced by the tumour modify the extracellular matrix so as the change the cellular coordination?

Promotor: Prof.dr. R. Verpoorte, Co-promotores: Dr. Y.H.Choi, N.R. Mustafa

Advanced mass spectrometry of glycosphingolipids takes the central stage in this thesis. Investigations focus on characterization of glycosphingolipid metabolism in health and disease with emphasis to the detection and accurate quantitation of known and so far unknown glycosphingolipids and closely…

An integrated approach of physiological concepts, advanced statistical approaches and large clinical datasets.

To increase clinical success rate of drugs, a better understanding of drug action mechanism and disease dynamics is required. Metabolomics, which studies small molecules involved in biochemical processes in organisms, has shown to be a useful tool for this better understanding.

Which compounds and microorganisms that live near and inside plant roots are beneficial? Can we use this knowledge to improve the health and growth of crop plants?

What are the differences between the trade in Chinese herbal drugs in Europe between 1800 and now? Can we see the major metabolic changes after 200 yours?

PhD defence

PhD defence

PhD defence

Our research is aimed at a smoother and speedier transition from preclinical research to pharmacological interventions, and the delivery of drugs in the human body by use of small molecules and biologics.

GRIPonMASH will address the unmet public health need of reducing disease burden and comorbidities associated with Metabolic dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease (MASLD).

Promotor: C.A.J. Knibbe, Co-promotores: H.P.A. van Dongen, B. van Ramshorst

Mechanobiology is a major area in biology, however, mechanics is currently a missing element in drug development pipelines. This has led to a high cost for the society. Mechanotoxicity of drugs often appears as a long-term side effect of drugs, and has led to removal of drugs from the market. Furthermore,…

The major and ultimate aim of metabolomics is to obtain an answer to a specific biological or clinical question.

Is it possible to synthesize industrially relevant compounds in a sustainable manner through the use of light-capturing cyanobacteria?

The company Azafaros was established in 2018 to translate innovative science from Leiden University and Amsterdam University Medical Center into novel disease-modifying treatment modalities for rare genetic metabolic disorders such as lysosomal storage diseases.

Developing a clinical decision support tool that will make it easier for clinicians to personalise the treatment for patients with high blood pressure. The team is using AI, deep learning methods and patient cohort data from 11 European countries.

Our group is part of the Metabolomics and Analytics Centre where we accompany the data from its acquisition all the way to the publication of identified associations and biomarkers for a range of human diseases. The generated data of the metabolic measurements are assessed using an in-house quality…