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

Promotores: Prof.dr. W.J.G.M. Peijnenburg & Dr. M.G. Vijver

Large carnivore population is globally declining as a result of the fragmentation of habitat, large prey depletion and retaliatory killing by pastoralists.

During post-embryonic development into adults, animals face an environment that fluctuates constantly. For example, in nutrient availability, temperature, and osmolarity (e.g., salt concentration).

Enzymes are innately sensitive to changes in the amino acid sequence, which largely constrains their evolutionary potential, i.e., evolvability. This evolutionary burden can be alleviated in the presence of stabilizing mutations, which increase the buffering capacity of enzymes to tolerate mutations…

Every organisms in the tree of life faces the same challenge: the length of its DNA exceeds the volume of the cell it needs to fit in. Several strategies have evolved to solve this problem, one of them being the expression of proteins that bind and organize the DNA.

Promotor: G.R. de Snoo

Although nanoparticles are extensively used in various applications like consumer products and have most probably entered the environment, little is known about the effects of these particles on living organisms.

Assessing the risks of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) solely on the basis of experimental assays is time-consuming, resource intensive, and constrained by ethical considerations (such as the principles of the 3Rs of animal testing). The adoption of computational toxicology in this field is a high p…

The power of personalized nutrition lies in being able to conduct clinical research on healthy people while capturing metabolic markers sensitive to the impact of environmental and metabolic stressors (e.g. diet, changing sex hormones and the menstrual cycle).

Promotoren: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo en Dr. R. Heijungs

The soil-dwelling, filamentous bacteria of the genus Streptomyces are renowned for their production of useful secondary metabolites including antibiotics. The work described in this thesis provides new insights on the role and regulation of antibiotic production and resistance in these bacteria.

Food waste is a defining inefficiency of the modern food system, with profound implications for resource use, climate change, and circular economy transitions. This dissertation examines food waste through two complementary lenses: the prevention of avoidable food waste and the valorization of unavoidable…

Natural resources often stretch across borders that separate modern nation states. This can create conflict and limit opportunities for regulated consumption of their goods and services, but also provide opportunities for joint multinational efforts that exceed single country capabilities.

Material circularity and energy efficiency are highly relevant and intertwined issues for the transition towards a carbon-neutral and circular built environment. In the Netherlands, the building sector has been rendered a priority towards a circular and low-carbon society.

Animal diet studies are critical for understanding ecological processes such as trophic interactions, energy flow, and nutrient cycling. By examining what animals consume, ecologists gain insights into species specialization, predator-prey relationships, and ecosystem management.

Dissolution processes – next to aggregation processes - play an important role for fate prediction and environmental risk assessment of metal-based nanoparticles (MNPs). It is challenging to predict the kinetics of the dissolution process of MNPs in complex systems such as we can find in in vivo and…

Globally and regionally, biodiversity is declining and there are shifts in species’ occurrences and functional traits.

This thesis explores how bees and hoverflies are distributed across the Dutch landscape and how ecological and landscape factors shape their occurrence.

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…

In hoeverre hopen nanodeeltjes zich op in planten en dieren, en welke eigenschappen van de deeltjes spelen hierbij een rol? Willie Peijnenburg, hoogleraar Milieutoxicologie en biodiversiteit kreeg een Marie-Curie beurs toegekend om onderzoek te doen naar de milieueffecten van nanodeeltjes.

Het afgelopen jaar spitte historica Fenna IJtsma zich door ‘vier eeuwen historisch groen’. In het kader van Erfgoed Deal zocht ze, met input van onder anderen biologen van Naturalis, naar inspiratie en voorbeelden uit het verleden om bij te dragen aan een toekomstige klimaatbestendige binnenstad.

Promotores: Prof.dr. G.A. Persoon & Prof. dr. H.H. de Iongh

Wij bestuderen de dagelijkse praktijk van individuen, groepen en gemeenschappen - zowel in Nederland als wereldwijd - om ze te plaatsen binnen de complexe processen van sociale en globale ontwikkeling. In Leiden zijn we gespecialiseerd in de gevolgen van globalisering op het gebied van milieu, sociale…

Climate change is a challenge for both current and future generations. New biological resources have to be developed in order to meet the demand for energy as well as the demand for food.

Plant architecture has distinct forms in different plant species, but also within a species the finalarchitecture of a plant is determined by its gradual development and changes therein induced by environmental conditions during the plant’s life cycle.

Promotores: G.A. Persoon, H.H. de Iongh

Promotors: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo, Prof.dr. G.A. Persoon, Prof.dr.ir. H.H. de Iongh

Circumstellar discs are the reservoirs of gas and dust that surround young stars and have the potential to become planetary systems.

Fase 2A van het Gorlaeus Gebouw wordt, net als fase 1, duurzaam gebouwd.

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.

Boek over bestrijdingsmiddelen en waterkwaliteit

Leiden University College The Hague (LUC) biedt een 3-jarige bacheloropleiding aan waarin je je focust op Global Challenges; grote uitdagingen waar de mensheid mee te maken heeft: Vrede & Rechtvaardigheid, Diversiteit, Duurzaamheid en Welvaart. Je hebt ruimte om de opleiding zo in te richten als je…

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

Het Instituut Bestuurskunde van de Universiteit Leiden vormt vanuit Den Haag een brug tussen wetenschappelijk onderzoek en de praktijk.

Leiden University College The Hague (LUC) biedt een 3-jarige bacheloropleiding aan waarin je je focust op Global Challenges; grote uitdagingen waar de mensheid mee te maken heeft: Vrede & Rechtvaardigheid, Diversiteit, Duurzaamheid en Welvaart. Je hebt ruimte om de opleiding zo in te richten als je…

Promotor: G.R. de Snoo, W. Kustiawan, Co-promotor: H.H. de Iongh

Onderzoekers gebruiken smartphones en andere consumentencamera’s steeds vaker voor wetenschappelijke toepassingen, zoals citizen science. Toch is het nog steeds moeilijk om gegevens van verschillende apparaten te vergelijken en combineren. Promovendus Olivier Burggraaff ontwikkelde een nieuwe, gebruiksvriendelijke…

Ontmoet ons team

Blubberig, nat, drassig en modder: bij het horen van deze woorden denk je niet direct aan een laboratorium. Het Levend Lab in Leiden is dan ook niet zomaar een lab. Ecotoxicoloog Martina Vijver en haar team onderzoeken er het effect van onder andere bestrijdingsmiddelen op het waterleven. Dorien Rozing…