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

Promotor: S.M. Verduyn Lunel, Co-promotor: S.C. Hille

n this PhD thesis, the recombination of different atomic lattices in stacked 2D materials such as twisted bilayer graphene is studied. Using the different possibilities of Low-Energy Electron Microscopy (LEEM), the domain forming between the two atomic layers with small differences is studied.

Geometric phases lead to a nontrivial interference result when an electron's different quantum mechanical paths choices encircle a magnetic coil in an Aharonov-Bohm experiment.

Promotor: Prof.dr. F.S. de Boer, Co-promotor: D. Clarke

This dissertation presents new cryptographic protocols, which can be divided into two families.

Modeling and analysis of cyber-physical systems are still challenging. One reason is that cyber-physical systems involve many different parts (cyber or physical), of different nature (discrete or continuous), and in constant interaction via sensing and actuating.

Inverse problems are problems where we want to estimate the values of certain parameters of a system given observations of the system. Such problems occur in several areas of science and engineering. Inverse problems are often ill-posed, which means that the observations of the system do not uniquely…

Viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) is a group of acute diseases caused by highly infectious viruses including Ebola, Lassa, Dengue viruses. Its high mortality rate poses high risk to public health, however, studies on VHF have been hampered due to the non-availability of proper models and incomplete knowledge…

Promotor: J. Zaanen, Co-Promotor: V. Juricic

Organic molecules in interstellar space are important as they influence the structure of galaxies and star formations. Studying catalytic processes in space allows us to understand how molecular species are formed and chemically evolved in the interstellar medium and solar system objects.

Promotor: Prof.dr. T. Hankemeier, Co-promotor: Theo Reijmers

Freshwater is an important resource, but at a great risk of species decline due to habitat loss, pollution and over-exploitation, and invasive alien species.

Parkinson's disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease in the world. One of its symptoms is the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta.

Fungal food spoilage often starts with a contamination with spores. Experimental data strongly indicate the existence of subpopulations of spores with different levels of resistance to preservation methods.

In summary, the collective results described in this thesis show that nanoparticulate vaccines can be delivered intradermally by coated and hollow microneedles and evoke antigen-specific immune responses.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide. Metastasis, the process by which cancer cells spread to other parts of the body, makes treatments less effective. It is important to unravel the mechanism of metastasis.

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.

Producing green energy has become the main goal in our society in the search of reducing or eliminating the carbon emission from fossil fuels.

Promotor: Prof.dr. J.P. Abrahams, Prof.dr. M. van Heel

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.

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

Plastics have become an integral part of modern society due to their versatility and durability.

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…

Acht op de tien experimentele geneesmiddelen overleven de testfase op patiënten niet. Piet Hein van der Graaf, hoogleraar Systeemfarmacologie, wil die verspilling van tijd en geld voorkomen met nieuwe meet- en rekenmethoden.

To improve treatment of breast cancer patients it is important to understand all stages of breast cancer from initiation to in situ disease and progression to invasive disease. In this thesis we use intraductal injections of patient derived tissue to model ductal carcinoma in situ and invasive breast…

In het onderzoeksprogramma Drug Discovery & Safety zijn we geïnteresseerd in de werkzaamheid en veiligheid van nieuwe medicijnen en nieuwe manieren om deze aspecten te bepalen. Daarvoor combineren we geavanceerde imaging en high-throughput screening technieken met computationele aanpakken zoals chem-…

Exploring metabolomics-based biomarkers for diagnosis and treatment response monitoring of community-acquired pneumonia

The cannabinoid receptor type 2 (CB2R) is associated with several inflammatory diseases with an unmet medical need (e.g. Alzheimers, multiple sclerosis, reumatoid arthritis). Development of new chemical biology strategies to study this protein is essential to aid future development of drugs for these…

Promotores: Prof.dr. E.A.L. Biessen, Prof.dr. T.J.C. van Berkel

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.

Promotor: T. Schmidt, Co-Promotor: B.E. Snaar-Jagalska

Lipid formulations have demonstrated strong potential for nucleic acid delivery,particularly with the success of COVID-19 vaccines. Despite these advances, manyaspects of lipid formulations remain unclear.

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.

Organic amendments applied to agricultural fields can partially offset our carbon emissions to the atmosphere and improve the resilience of agriculture to the effects of climate change. Driving these benefits, however, are complex and poorly understood interactions between organic amendment properties,…

In this thesis, I focused on studying the above- and belowground interactions of J. vulgaris from a plant-soil feedback (hereafter, PSF) perspective. I investigated the temporal variation of negative PSF and examined the effects of root-associated bacteria on plant performance and aboveground herbiv…

Promotor: T. Schmidt

Promotores: G.W. Canters, T.J. Aartsma

This thesis advances our understanding of lipid uptake, a vital first step in lipid metabolism, by developing innovative click chemistry-based tools to study how immune cells internalize lipids.

This thesis involves three topics: benchmarking discrete optimization algorithms, empirical analyses of evolutionary computation, and automatic algorithm configuration.

Promotores: Prof.dr. H.P. Spaink & Prof.dr. P.C.W. Hogendoorn Co-promotor: Dr. M.J.M. Schaaf

Nucleoid associated proteins maintain the architecture of the bacterial chromosome and regulate gene expression, hinting that their role as transcription factors may involve local three-dimensional chromosome re-modelling.

Promotor: J.W.M. Frenken

Consequences for sediment stability and seston trapping

Promotores: Prof.dr. J.N. Kok, Prof.dr. C.A. Mandemakers, Co-Promotor: G. Bloothooft

Bacterial chemosensory arrays are protein assemblies that are the key structural and functional component for motile bacteria to sense their internal or environmental chemical signals.

Promotor: H.J.A. Röttgering, Co-promotor: M. Haverkorn

This thesis systematically analyzes the physical-chemistry of lipid-graphene interactions with the major objective of reconciliating the variety of results reported in the literature.

The rapidly increasing commercial application of metallic nanoparticles within products will inevitably enhance the amount of NPs being released into soil.