The Data-Driven Drug Discovery Network (D4N) is an initiative by researchers from Leiden University and collaborators to join efforts in applying and developing novel techniques from data science to drug discovery and related topics from bioinformatics.

Can metabolomic profiling be used to predict resistance against insect herbivores in plants?

Promotors: C.A.J. Knibbe, Anthonius de Boer, Co-promotor: M.M.J. van der Vorst

Global healthcare is on the verge of an antibiotic availability crisis as bacteria have evolved resistance to nearly all known antibacterials. Identifying new antibiotics that operate via novel modes-of-action is therefore of high priority.

One of the stained glass windows in the Great Auditorium of the Academy Building is dedicated to the students and staff of Leiden University who resisted, protested against, or became victims of the German occupiers. It depicts female figures alongside male ones.

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

Supervisor: Indira Nederpelt

Can the conditioning paradigm be used for checkpoint inhibition cancer treatment?

This project will construct an inventory of possible conceptions of the resistance of the world to scientists’ claims and theories.

Discovery of metastasis promoting candidate drug targets

Breeding for resistance becomes more and more important because we want to reduce the use of pesticides. A fast and cheap alternative can be to make use of morphological or chemical markers.

Is is possible to better predict the validity of drug candidates?

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

Drug development is a complex process in which many parties work together. Every day, the researchers at LACDR devote their energies to developing drugs that are new, better, more efficient and easier to produce. And thus to the millions of patients who know all too well why this research in Leiden…

How are new drugs developed? This question is central to the Minor Modern Drug Discovery (MDD), which covers the entire trajectory from disease to drug molecule and vice versa. The various research groups involved offer a complementary and interdisciplinary perspective by connecting the diverse subjects…

This project aims to assess the risk of spread of antimicrobial resistance genes in the environment derived from currently used synthetic biology approaches in the field of drug discovery.

Citizens in multiple crime-ridden countries strongly support the militarization of security—that is, placing the military in charge of traditional policing duties. Yet, we know little about the determinants of such support. Do people approve of militarization even in the face of human fatalities? Political…

This project is funded by the Dutch Cancer Society. The project will be part of an ongoing research line aimed at identifying mechanisms of cancer therapy resistance and metastasis. In this project, it will be investigated how the Grainyhead family of transcription factors controls therapy response…

Drug-target binding kinetics determine the time course of the central event in pharmacotherapy: Drug-target interaction.

What are the biological effects of Chinese herbal medicine in regulation of cancer cell metastasis?

The drug discovery pipeline is used to describe the stages in drug discovery. The earliest stage concerns with the identification of potential targets and molecules ('hits') that can modulate their function, while more advanced stages are about developing these hits into viable experimental drugs and…

In previous studies at our laboratory it was demonstrated that drug exposure of HepG2 cells can lead to an altered TNFα-induced NF-κB oscillatory phenotype, concurrent with a synergistically increased sensitivity for TNFα-induced apoptosis.

Promotor: M. Danhof Co-promotor: O.E. Della Pasqua

Polymyxins are clinically used antibiotics, discovered in mid-20th century. Once abandoned due to excessive nephrotoxicity, they are now used increasingly to address infections caused by multi-drug resistant Gram-negative bacteria.In this thesis, we describe the development and synthesis of analogues…

Traditional drug discovery approaches have been hampered by (in vitro) cell-culture models that poorly represent the situation in the human body.

The advanced insights obtained for the CNS PBPK model development are currently used to develop advanced mathematical models for drug distribution prediction in other body tissues protected by barriers, such as the gut. The gut PBPK model will be linked to drug effects for treatment of colon cancer.

Prostate cancer (PCa) is one of the most prevalent cancer in males.

Liposomes hold great promise for peptide-based personalized cancer vaccination, especially when administered intradermally. However, current liposome preparation methods are very time consuming (resulting in long development times per formulation), whereas personalized cancer vaccination requires very…

In this thesis, we used genetically engineered mouse models and a variety of cell-culture based assays to identify genes and pathways that are involved in the development and treatment of invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC).

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.

Promotores: Wim Jiskoot; Ferry Ossendorp

The Minor Computational Approaches to Disease, Signaling and Drug Targets (CADSDT) is focused on fundamental scientific research required for discovery of new drug targets and development of new drugs.

In the hunt for a vaccine against cervical cancer, fundamental knowledge about the immune system and organic chemistry have been brought together and have already resulted in a vaccine that is now being tested in clinical trials. Scientists are now working hard on an improved variant.

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.

Molecular Physiology is a research group at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry dedicated to the design, synthesis and application of chemical tools to study important biological and biomedical questions. The group is headed by Prof. Dr. Mario van der Stelt and includes the research lines of Assistant…

This thesis focuses on using liposomes in two different treatment strategies; vaccination (or immunotherapy) and delivery of a small molecule, and in two different disease models; cancer and atherosclerosis.

In this thesis, we aim to shed light on the diverse and often opposing roles of integrin α3β1 in cancer.

We cover the entire spectrum from target identification to the evaluation of the efficacy and safety of novel medicines in clinical practice.

Providing each cancer patient with the right treatment remains a challenge. Oncode Accelerator aims to change this by innovating the way we develop cancer treatments, thus ensuring the patient is at the heart of the process.

Cell biologist Erik Danen has been awarderd a grant of half a million euros to study how tumor cells spread throughout the body en develop drug resistance. This was announced mid-August by the Dutch Cancer Society Fund (KWF).

A novel mathematical model describes spatial-temporal drug distribution within one or more brain units, which are cubic representations of a piece of brain tissue with brain capillaries at the edges.

What makes some international organisations more likely to succumb to crises where others manage to survive or even thrive? And what can international organisations do to become resilient and withstand existential challenges? Political Scientist Gisela Hirschmann (Leiden University) studied the example…

In the literature, several types of microneedles have been extensively described. However, porous microneedle arrays only received minimal attention. Hence, only little is known about drug delivery via these microneedles. However, porous microneedle arrays may have potential for future microneedle-based…

Which plant leaf characteristics are involved in thrips resistance in tomato?

Promotor: A.H. Meijer, Co-promotor: B.E. Snaar-Jagalska

Source: Nature Biotechnology, Volume 2014, Issue June (2014)

Can thrips resistance in strawberry be explained based on secondary metabolite profiles and plant morphological traits?

Cancer is one of the main causes of death in the Netherlands. Leiden researchers are working to improve the treatment of different types of cancer in order to increase the patient’s quality of life. A better understanding of how cancer develops will make it possible to deliver personalised and precise…

Researchers of the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) and the Leiden Institute of Chemistry have made an important discovery about the commonly used anti-cancer drug doxorubicin. They have found a way to reduce its side effects without sacrificing the effectiveness of the medication. This is encouraging…

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…