At the division of Biopharmaceutics, we aim to develop and test new therapeutic approaches to limit or even prevent the development of atherosclerosis in order to reduce the number of acute cardiovascular syndromes such as myocardial infarction or stroke.

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.

Which brain cell does what, when Parkinson's disease arises? It won't be long before this jigsaw is solved piece by piece. Ahmed Mahfouz, computational biologist, combines bio-knowledge from Leiden with algorithms from Delft and is getting closer to finding the key.

The research is aimed at development of an efficient gene targeting method that allows controlled integration of DNA at a preselected site in the Trichoderma genome.

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).

How can we quantify the density of species within a community through environmental DNA concentrations?

Promotor: G.P. van Wezel

Bacteria often experience external challenges, such as changes in environmental conditions or attacks by bacteriophages.

Promotor: Prof.dr. B. van de Water, Co-promotores: L.T.M. van der Ven, A.S. Kienhuis

The ADAPTED (Alzheimer's Disease Apolipoprotein Pathology for Treatment Elucidation and Development) project is a major new initiative to investigate an area of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) research which has previously received little attention. The project aims to improve understanding of the function…

Hybrid zones occur where two species meet and produce offspring (hybrids). Typically, hybrids show a considerable reduction in fitness. In this thesis two hybrid zones are treated.

Science, Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL)

This thesis focuses on two processes involved in fighting infections: metabolism and immune cell motility and navigation.

Our object is to identify and characterize transcription factors involved in lignocellulosic biomass degradation in the filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger.

Identification and characterization of components of DNA repair pathways and their role in Agrobacterium T-DNA integration and repair of CRISPR/Cas induced DSBs.

PhD defence

How do macrophages and neutrophils contribute to metastatic onset?

Throughout all domains of life, from bacteria and archaea to eukaryotes, genomes adopt well-organized three-dimensional structures that can change in space and time to accommodate preferred transcriptional programs for environmental adaptation, the maintenance of cellular identity and differentiation…

Both psoriasis and atheroslcerosis are diseases characterized by a chronic and systemic inflammatory profile with local lipid disturbances that alter the barrier function of the skin (psoriasis) and cause the development of atherosclerotic plaques (atherosclerosis).

How does FoxP1 affect auditory perception on a behavioural and genomic level?

The genomic DNA of every organism is organized and compacted in order to fit inside the cell. This is achieved by the joint action of numerous architectural proteins that aid in folding the genome. Genome folding is tightly interconnected with transcription, with genes in certain regions being silenced,…

Despite being the object of intense study, embryonic development has been difficult to model due to a number of reasons. First, complex tissues can be comprised of many cell types, of which we probably only know a subset.

Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is one of the main reasons for drug attrition during pre-clinical and clinical phases of drug development as well as for drug withdrawal post-marketing.

How is Pol θ responsible for T-DNA integration, and how do other DNA double-strand break repair pathways interact with Pol θ? How may we manipulate T-DNA integration to stimulate error-free integration at a predetermined genomic site?

In populations with a seed-bank, individuals can temporarily become dormant and refrain from reproduction until they can become active again. The repository of all dormant individuals in the population is called the seed-bank. Seed-banks are observed in many taxa, including plants, bacteria and other…

PhD defence