What we do
It is our mission to unravel the molecular details of the working of cells in their normal function and the perturbed functioning in diseased cells. We help translate our knowledge and technologies to clinical practice.
Research
Our common goal is simple and easily described, but the road we take and focus points we have in our science are very diverse. Ranging from virus biology to genome editing, diabetes and oncogenic signaling, our scope of interest covers a wide area of life science.
Affiliated labs
We collaborate with some of the worlds leading institutes in all field of science. Some of the labs we affiliate with and their leaders that hold positions at our department are:
Prof. Hidde Ploegh appointed as Jon J. van Rood-scholar ( Harvard Medical School, United States of America)
Prof. Brenda Schulman appointed as LUF-Boerhaave Visiting Professor (Max-Planck Institute, Martinsried, Germany)
Cases
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Neutralized, but not inactivated
Viruses have shown renewed promise in the treatment of cancer, after new research has shown they retain their cancer-killing ability even when injected into the bloodstream. It is believed that the human body’s normal immune response neutralizes viruses that are injected into the bloodstream to try to destroy tumors during oncolytic virus therapy. In a new study investigating reovirus, scientists found that cells in the blood can reactivate the virus as it travels to the tumor site, allowing it to retain its ability to destroy the cancer cells.
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Observing endogenously tagged fluorescent proteins
Fluorescence microscopy is an essential tool to study cellular processes in living cells. But studying proteins at endogenous expression levels creates a technical challenge due to the lower expression levels compared to those of ectopically (over)-expressed fluorescent proteins. Here we will have a look at how spinning disk microscopy alleviates these challenges.
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New Protein Facility for LUMC
The department of Cell and Chemical Biology was awarded 1 million euros to set up a new facility for protein expression, purification, and characterization of proteins. Studying these proteins will help scientist understand how mutations cause genetic diseases and find novel ways to fight infections caused by pathogens.
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