Multicellular giant algae Chara species have been widely used in physiological studies for decades.

How can we make agricultural production systems more sustainable as the worldwide demand for healthy, safe food continues to grow? How can we develop healthy new food crops that have higher yields while requiring fewer harmful chemicals?

Lecture, LUCL Colloquium - Series '24/'25

In his groundbreaking Imagined Communities, first published in 1983, Benedict Anderson argued that members of a community experience a

Promotor: G.P. van Wezel

How did galaxies form? How did galaxies evolve?

How were the Russians, under early modern conditions, able to incorporate this distant, undeveloped and, because frequent nomadic attacks, dangerous territory? And what role did the Kolyvan-Voskresensk plants play in this process?

Promotor: G.R. de Snoo, Co-promotor: H.H. de Iongh, C.J.M. Musters

This thesis investigates the relations between metabolism and anatomy through the use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).

How do macrophages and neutrophils contribute to metastatic onset?

Promotor: Prof.dr. J. Memelink

Restoring a natural plant environment on exhausted agricultural lands and in nature areas is difficult. We can speed this up by steering the soils towards the desired situation. This is what Martijn Bezemer, newly appointed Professor of Ecology of Plant-Microbe-Insect interactions at Leiden University’s…

Why do communities form militias to defend themselves against violence during civil war? Using original interviews with former combatants and civilians and archival material from extensive fieldwork in Mozambique, Corinna Jentzsch (Leiden University Institute of Political Science) explains the timing,…

Promotor: Prof.dr. E.F. van Dishoeck, Prof.dr. F.F.S. van der Tak (RUG)

The disappearance and reappearance of species of plants in the Netherlands is a normal phenomenon. In the period from 1981-2000 the number of plants to have disappeared was considerably lower than previously, whereas the number of species rediscovered is much higher. Climate change may be the cause.

By examining the impact of Islam on the daily life of those living under its rule, the goal of this project is to understand the striking newness of Islamic society and its debt to the diverse cultures it superseded. Questions will be the extent, character, and ambition of Muslim state competency at…

The solar system was formed approximately 4.56 billion years ago. Despite the numerous theories that have been developed over the years, the formation and evolution of the solar system still remain unclear.

Promotor: P.G.L. Klinkhamer, Co-Promotores: K. Vrieling, P.P.J. Mulder

Promotor: Prof.dr. L.J. Slikkerveer

We report new computational and experimental evidence of an efficient and astrochemically relevant formation route to formaldehyde (H2CO). This simplest carbonylic compound is central to the formation of complex organics in cold interstellar clouds and is generally regarded to be formed by the hydrogenation…

Carbon dioxide capture and utilization technologies are necessary to create a truly circular economy. The electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide to formate is an appealing carbon utilization method as it can be performed at room temperature and pressure, it only requires two electrons, and it has…

The Netherlands is losing plant species that rely on pollination by insects. Leiden environmental scientist Kaixuan Pan demonstrates this after analysing 87 years of measurements from over 365,000 plots. The news is alarming for our biodiversity and food security. ‘75 per cent of our crops and 90% of…

Producing offspring of a crop without sowing and that is even bigger than the parent plant. According to Leiden researchers this can be achieved by overstimulating a single gene that rejuvenates cells, including bringing them back to the embryonic phase.

Aristocratic dynasties have long been regarded as fundamental to the development of early modern society and government. Yet recent work by political historians has increasingly questioned the dominant role of ruling families in state formation, underlining instead the continued importance and independence…

Protein–protein complexes are formed via transient states called encounter complexes that greatly influence the formation of the stereospecific complex.

In this book, Lydie Cabane examines the history of disaster management in South Africa.

Promotores: Prof.dr. M. Franx & Prof.dr. P.G. van Dokkum (Yale University)

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.

A special relationship between plants and fungi, which plays an important role in carbon storage in soil, has the potential to slow down climate change. However, the amount of carbon stored in soil is decreasing as a result of human activity. This is what researchers say in a publication in Nature Communications.…

Plants can’t run away from enemies. Still, it would like to keep life-threatening herbivores at a distance. This can be done with odours. Klaas Vrieling of the Institute of Biology Leiden found out with his team how plants change odour production to keep the munchers at a distance.

A dense region of a gaseous and dusty cloud collapses to form a protostar surrounded by a disk and an envelope. This thesis uses both observations and models to study physical and chemical conditions of these protostellar systems which are likely where planets start to form.

Amorphophallus decus-silvae, or the ‘penis plant’ as it is known, has just flowered at the Hortus botanicus. It flowered for two days, and then the pollen, which the male flowers produced was collected. As far as the plant experts at the Hortus can tell, this was just the third time that this species…

Soil that is too wet, or too dry. Or with a lot or few nutrients. Due to climate change, the differences are becoming bigger, and plants must increasingly be able to adapt to survive. How do you make plants more stress-resistant? For this purpose, researchers from Leiden, along with other universities,…

Just like us, plants also produce growth hormones, and they also go through an ageing process. The study of the genes and mechanisms behind these processes is useful not only for crop breeding and agriculture, but also for medical research. That is the view held by Professor of Plant Developmental Genetics…

Plants, are sessile organisms, have developed strategies to adapt to changes in their environment, in part by altering their growth and development.

Detecting planets during their formation stages is crucial for understanding the history and diversity of fully developed planetary systems like our own. However, observing young planets directly is challenging because they are often deeply embedded within their host protoplanetary discs, rich in gas…

The origin and evolution of galaxies are closely tied to the cyclic feedback processes between stars and the interstellar medium (ISM).

Drained leaves and plants stripped bare. Insects can completely destroy crops. Soon, these situations may be behind us, with the new pesticide developed by Leiden and Wageningen researchers. With their plant-based ‘insect glue’, insects are incapacitated.

Leiden researchers, Professor Remko Offringa and co-applicants Salma Balazadeh and Frederic Lens received an NWO-XL grant (2.5 million euros). Together with researchers in Wageningen and Groningen, they will study the genetic and environmental drivers of woodiness. From plant to molecule, the groups…

What are the global relationships between environmental conditions and abundance of distinct types of mycorrhizal fungi in soil and plant roots?

Leiden physicists are helping Wageningen plant researchers to study unpredictable plant embryos. For this, they are using a novel two-photon fluorescence microscope, aided by a 30 thousand euro ZonMW grant.

Which genes are involved in woodiness and associated traits such as drought tolerance, flowering time, stem elongation, life span, and plant herbivory, and how do these gene regulatory pathways overlap?

Protoplanetary disks are the gas and dust environments where planetary systems form around young stars. Using observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) this thesis analyses the gaseous molecular reservoir, using multiple tracers to resolve the 3D structure of protoplanetary…

In our research protein translocation from Agrobacterium into yeast and plant cells is studied to obtain fundamental insights in the translocation process

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

‘It was a discovery we did not expect,’ says Remko Offringa, professor of Plant developmental genetics. Today he publishes a new trait of a versatile gene in Current Biology: it makes the difference in plants between herbaceous and woody stem growth. A useful feature to prevent dehydration.