Developing new medicines is one of modern science's most significant hurdles, a process marked by high costs, long timelines, and frequent failures of promising candidates.

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.

Promotores: G.R. de Snoo, W.T. de Groot, Co-promotor: C.J.M. Musters

Control of infectious diseases poses continuous challenges for human health.

Prof.dr. J. Memelink

With the energy transition toward a renewable energy supply and a CO2-neutral economy, electrification of the energy system is rising in importance, which leads to the challenge of long-term storage of renewable electricity.

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

Plants, are sessile organisms, have developed strategies to adapt to changes in their environment, in part by altering their growth and development.

Catalysis is of extreme relevance in the production of everyday materials and plays a central role in many aspects of our life.

Growth and development affect the metabolism of drugs administered to neonates, infants, and children.

Consequences for sediment stability and seston trapping

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo, Co-promotor: R. Heijungs

Invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) is the second most common type of breast cancer.

Streptomyces bacteria are a valuable source of natural products, many of which are used in the clinic or in biotechnology.

Epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity (EMP) and tumor cell migration play an important role in cancer progression, and an improved understanding of the mechanisms underlying these concepts is essential for developing new targeted approaches.

Promotor: G.J. Kramer Co-Promotor: E.G.M. Kleijn

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

The name ‘Jambi flora’ refers to fossil plants found as part of a rock formation from the Early Permian (296 million years old), located in the Jambi Province of Sumatra, Indonesia.

Phosphorylation affects all four major biomolecules – proteins, lipids, carbohydrates and nucleic acids – and plays a pivotal role in the most fundamental cellular functions.

Humanity stands at a pivotal juncture, facing the dual challenge of environmental sustainability and rapid population growth, projected to exceed 11 billion by century’s end.

The endocannabinoid receptors CB1R and CB2R are involved in a plethora of processes, and consequently are involved in many pathological conditions. Their wide distribution makes the CBRs both an interesting therapeutic target and hard to study.

One of the most important correlation functions in physics, especially in cosmology, is the energy density, which describes how much energy is present at each point in spacetime due to matter fields. A key contribution to the energy density of the primordial universe comes from gravitational waves (GWs),…

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

In this thesis, the role of plant-mediated soil legacy effects in shaping aboveground plant-insect interactions was investigated.

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…

The unit residue group, to which the present thesis is devoted, is defined using the norm-residue symbol, which Hilbert introduced into algebraic number theory in 1897.

Promotor: H.P. Spaink, A.H. Meijer Co-promotor: R. Marin-Juez

In this thesis, the role of mast cells in atherosclerosis and novel therapeutic strategies to inhibit atherosclerosis progression are discussed. The first part of the thesis specifically focuses on the relation between mast cells and advanced human atherosclerotic plaque characteristics.

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.

Self-assembly is an abundant process in nature and is vital to many processes in living organisms.

Electrocatalysis allows for storing electricity or converting it into chemical bonds, producing chemical building blocks and fuels using renewable resources.

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

LCA has become an important method to study environmental impacts of human activities. Still, there are several methodological issues in LCA that can adversely affect the results reliability.

The research presented in this thesis makes use of small molecules (as H2 , D2 and O2 ) on well-defined single crystal surfaces (flat Pt(111), flat Cu(211) and curved Pt(111)) to elucidate the role of surface structure and degrees of freedom in the reactant in specific surface reactions.

Promotor: Prof.dr. M. Ubbink

Promotores: Prof.dr. G. Miley & Prof.dr. J.M. van den Broek

Promotor: E.F. Smets Co-promotor: J. Geml

Natural vanilla flavor is one of the most important in the world. However, the cost of this flavor is expensive. Production of this flavor by alternative methods, could reduce the cost.

Promotor: Jaap Brouwer, Co-promotor: Remus Th. Dame

In this Ph.D. thesis, we characterized two novel upstream regulators of JUB1, HB40, and HB22, in Arabidopsis thaliana. In Chapter 2, we described functions of HB40 in modulating growth and development via the regulation of JUB1 and GA inactivation genes GA2OXs.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a subtype of breast cancer characterized by limited treatment options and unfavorable clinical outcomes. Therefore, the research described in this thesis focused on the exploration of novel targeted therapies for TNBC.

The electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is an essential half-reaction for the utilization of hydrogen as a sustainable fuel, via the conversion of hydrogen to electrons and protons facilitated by the ORR. In the most common fuel cells, the ORR is requires high loadings of non-abundant platinum…

Acidobacteria is a widely distributed phylum but their functional roles in ecosystem processes are still largely elusive.

Inflammatory skin diseases such as psoriasis and atopic dermatitis can severely impact both the physical and social aspect of a patient’s life. Aberrant inflammatory responses are thought to be a major causative factor in these disorders, but an abundance of different factors contribute to the development…

Promotor: H.V.J. Linnartz

Why do black holes emit thermal radiation? And how does a closed quantum system thermalize?

The plant hormone auxin plays a central role in the growth and development of plants. Auxin acts in a concentration dependent manner and polar cell-to-cell transport of this hormone determines its distribution in the tissues of plants. This polar auxin transport is mediated by several families of auxin…

Promotor: M.T.M. Koper, Co-promotor: J.B.F. Juurlink

Promotor: H.S. Overkleeft, Co-promotor: M. van der Stelt

Promotor: Prof.dr. J. Kuiper