Cancer is considered the silent pandemic of the 21st century and the second leading cause of death worldwide.

Langetermijnontwikkelingen, zoals het verouderen van de bevolking, de toename in de gemiddelde levensverwachting en de gevolgen van de recente financiële crisis, hebben bijgedragen aan de discussie rondom de houdbaarheid van het pensioenstelsel.

Balsaminaceae is a diverse plant family characterized by a huge floral morphological diversity.

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.

In this dissertation iron-based homogeneous catalysts were synthesized, characterized and investigated for water oxidation activity.

The increasing competition in the automotive industry requires the tailored, swift development of technologically sophisticated vehicles. Therefore, the computationally expensive state-of-the-art simulation technologies are combined with optimization algorithms. An example of a real-world optimization…

Op 11 november 2021 verdedigde Evelien Campfens het proefschrift 'Cross-border Claims to Cultural Objects'. Het promotieonderzoek is begeleid door prof.dr. N.J. Schrijver en prof.dr. W.J. Veraart (VU Amsterdam).

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

Utilizing the polymeric platform of polypept(o)ides, this thesis describes synthesis and investigation of novel triblock copolymers to obtain carrier systems with multiple compartments for efficient siRNA delivery. Although the individual microstructure of nanoparticles differs depending on the polymeric…

Acute cardiovascular clinical events such as myocardial infarction and cerebral stroke represent the major cause of death in Western societies. These pathologies are primarily resulting from atherosclerosis, a progressive condition characterized by the accumulation of lipids, immune cells, and fibrous…

Promotor: P.D. Grünwald

Stochastic resetting is simple enough to be approached analytically, yet modifies stochastic processes in a non-trivial way.

Overall dispersion in LCA as result of inherent uncertainties, spread and unrepresentativeness.

Lysosomal acid glucosylceramidase (GBA1) is a lysosomal enzyme that degrades glucolipids with its main substrate being glucosylceramide (GlcCer). Defects in the GBA1 gene lead to glycosphingolipidosis Gaucher disease (GD), in which the hydrolysis of GlcCer is impaired and therefore, it accumulates in…

Atherosclerosis is the most important underlying process that drives cardiovascular disease, and is characterized by an accumulation of cholesterol which triggers an inflammatory response in the vessel wall.

Pectin is a plant cell wall polysaccharide made of mainly D-galacturonic acid (GA) subunits. The potency of the filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger to naturally secrete high amounts of pectinases to degrade pectin has been utilized for the industrial production of pectinases.

Anthropogenic noise has been shown to affect marine animals in various ways, this may have fitness consequences at individual and population level. This thesis aims to increase insight into the quantification of sound-induced behavioural responses that are relevant to fitness, and into factors that…

Women Writing Mexico (WWM) is a network of women and men concerned with the human rights crisis in Mexico and more specifically, with the impact of structural forms of poverty, everyday violence, and discrimination based on gender, race, social class, and ethnicity, that particularly have an impact…

Regeneration is the ability of an organism to restore damaged or lost tissue with a functional replacement, and without scarring. Many lizards can regenerate their tails.

Promotores: T.H.W. Bäck, Y. Tan, Co-promotor: M.T.M. Emmerich

This work describes the use of click-to-release chemistry to get spatiotemporal control over immunocytokine activity. Until now, immunocytokines (cytokines coupled to a tumor-targeting-moiety) remained active throughout the body, being able to bind their respective receptors, causing mild to severe…

Trigonostemon Blume is a plant genus in the family Euphorbiaceae comprising 59 species.

Even though more than 4000 extra-solar planets are known today, only a small fraction of these has been captured in an image. To better understand the planet formation mechanisms in solar-like environments we started the Young Suns Exoplanet Survey (YSES).

Adenosine is an endogenous ligand which exerts its action by activating adenosine receptors (ARs), while its circulating levels are controlled via a variety of mechanism and proteins, amongst others the equilibrative nucleoside transporters (ENTs).

Fundamental research in the ALgebra, Geometry And Number Theory

A large diversity of exoplanetary systems has been found, but it is still unclear what drives this diversity.

Promotor: G.A. van der Marel, Co-promotor: D.C. Codée

In the last decade, the redox interconversion between metal thiolate and disulfide compounds has been extensively investigated for copper, but not for other transition metal ions.

Promotor: Prof.dr. C.W.J. Beenakker

This dissertation is an experimental study of laser-generated, atmospheric pressure, transient toroidal helium plasmas.

Op 28 oktober 2021 verdedigde Hein van der Bruggen zijn proefschrift en behaalde daarmee de doctorstitel.

Plant diversity is essential for us and our planet as it sustains the stability of our ecosystems, provides vital materials and food to us and supports many ecosystem services.

Promotor: Prof.dr. W.J.G.M. Peijnenburg

Heart failure is a major health care problem with high mortality.

This dissertation is about Bayesian learning from data. How can humans and computers learn from data?

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.

Glycosidases are essential in fundamental biological processes and are responsible for the degradation of most (oligo)saccharides, glycolipids and glycoproteins.

Promotor: Prof.dr. A. P. IJzerman, Co-Promotor: L.H. Heitman

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.

All crested and marbled newts (the genus Triturus) suffer from an unusual genetic abnormality, called a balanced lethal system, that kills exactly half of their offspring. How can a trait so disadvantageous have survived millions of years of natural selection?

Promotores: R. Cramer, A.K. Lenstra, Co-Promotor: B.M.M. de Weger

Promotor: W. Jaffe, Co-promotor: K. Meisenheimer

The spindle-assembly checkpoint (SAC) is a safety mechanism which secures accurate chromosome segregation during mitosis.

This thesis is concerned with the constitution of chiral responsive matrix assemblies that may undergo light-driven conformational changes and self-select vibrations to develop vibronic states for driving semi-classical coherent transfer with nearly 100% yield in a lossless NCAP process.

PNEC-pro is a user-friendly screening tool for professionals dealing with the assessment of surface water quality. The tool calculates local, watertype specific no-effect concentrations (PNEC) of copper, lead, nickel and zinc based on biotic ligand models (BLMs).

Promotor: Prof.dr. S.F. Portegies Zwart

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) constitutes a small subtype (~15%) of breast cancer, but causes the majority of breast cancer-related deaths.

This thesis describes the role of pollution, specifically neonicotinoid insecticides, as an actor of the ongoing biodiversity decline.

Promotor: J.M. van Ruitenbeek, Co-Promotor: S.J. van der Molen

Human civilization consumes a huge amount of fossil fuels, which has resulted in an atmospheric CO2 level which has not been higher in over 800 millennia.