News

New CRISPR-Cas system with on-off switch cuts proteins

Researchers from TU Delft in the group of Stan Broun have discovered a CRISPR-Cas system that cuts proteins instead of DNA.

Cells: strong at the right place and time

Researchers from TU Delft and NWO institute AMOLF discovered how certain molecular bonds make living cells both flexible, in order to move, as well as strong, in order to withstand forces.

TU Delft iGEM team aims to develop sensor to detect GHB in drinks

Someone may slip drugs into your drink without you noticing, after which you may not be able to think clearly. However, this kind of drugging can almost never be proven, because GHB disappears from the blood within 3 hours. The iGEM student team at TU Delft is working on a fast sensor to detect GHB in drinks. This will alert the user and provide evidence of drugging. 

TU Delft researchers create flow-driven rotors at the nanoscale

Onderzoekers van de TU Delft hebben de kleinste door stroming gedreven motoren ter wereld ontwikkeld. Geïnspireerd door de iconische Nederlandse windmolens en door biologische motoreiwitten hebben ze een zichzelf configurerende, stromingsgedreven turbine uit DNA gemaakt, die energie van een elektrische of zoutgradiënt omzet in bruikbaar mechanisch vermogen. De resultaten bieden perspectief voor de ontwikkeling van actieve robotica op nanoschaal. Het artikel is vandaag gepubliceerd in Nature Physics.

NextSkins: EIC Pathfinder grant for collaborative living materials research

A team of researchers from TU Delft, Imperial College London, and Aalto University have received a EIC Pathfinder Challenge grant of 4 million euros for their NextSkins research project on Engineered Living Materials.

Dekker scholarship for MRI research Sebastian Weingärtner

De Hartstichting heeft onderzoeker dr. Sebastian Weingärtner van de TU Delft een Dekkerbeurs toegekend. Dat is een persoonlijke onderzoeksbeurs voor getalenteerde wetenschappers die jaarlijks wordt toegekend. Met de beurs van 490.000 euro kan hij de komende jaren onderzoek doen naar hart- en vaatziekten.

Convergence brings together investment of 60 million for future-proof healthcare

Tien Flagship projecten van de Convergence, de strategische samenwerking van de TU Delft, het Erasmus MC en de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam gaan onderzoek doen gericht op het toekomstbestendig maken van de gezondheidszorg. De Flagships ontvangen bij elkaar 20 miljoen euro van het Convergence Health & Tech programma. Samenwerking met publieke en private partijen voegt daar nog eens ruim 40 miljoen aan toe.

Evolutionary model predicts how cells control the partitioning of their molecules

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organisation in Göttingen, Germany, and the TU Delft in the Netherlands have developed a new method to study how mixtures, consisting of many different molecules, interact to reliable form different droplets, as happens continuously in the living cell. This is the first time that scientists designed a model of many interacting molecules that can predict how particular droplets form. They published their findings in PNAS this week.

Kateřina Staňková receives Vidi grant

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a Vidi grant worth up to 800,000 euros to Kateřina Staňková, a scientist of the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management. The grant provides her with the opportunity to further elaborate her own research idea and expand her research team. Kateřina explains what her Vidi research entails.

Baker’s yeast with human muscle genes

Biotechnologist Pascale Daran-Lapujade and her group at Delft University of Technology managed to build human muscle genes in the DNA of baker’s yeast. This is the first time researchers have successfully placed such a vital human feature into a yeast cell.

Collaborations by design

Addressing the complex challenges of today and tomorrow requires many actors, perspectives and disciplines. But forming effective and mutually beneficial collaborations can be challenging. Designing with Delft aims to facilitate this process, bringing researchers and educators from the university together with innovators from organisations to identify common goals, define a shared vision and develop concrete plans for collaborations.
Research Xueliang Li: Handling stress: using wearable technology to help people with PTSD

Handling stress: using wearable technology to help people with PTSD

The obvious triggers of stress are all around us: pressing deadlines at work, children not sleeping through the night, a leaking roof. But sometimes it's smaller things, certain locations or specific times of day, that increase our stress levels. Understanding those triggers using wearable technology, with a focus on people who experience a lot of stress - people with PTSD - was the topic of Xueliang Li’s PhD research.

Gravity grant awarded to research on brain interactions

To understand how the brain works, we need to understand how each part, from neuron to brain region, interacts with the rest of the brain and with the outside world. Thanks to a grant of 21.9 million euros from the Gravity program, from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, a national consortium can now conduct further research into this.

From light spots to supersharp images

Making detailed 3D images of proteins in living cells with a special light microscope, without damaging those cells. That is what Sjoerd Stallinga, winner of an ERC Advanced grant worth 2.3 million euros, wants to achieve. In order to do so he is going to scan samples nanometer by nanometer using a sophisticated 3D light pattern in an approach that requires extensive collaboration between different disciplines.

Bacterial soundtracks revealed by graphene membrane

A of researchers from TU Delft , led by dr. Farbod Alijani, have managed to capture low-level noise of a single bacterium using graphene. Now, their research is published in Nature Nanotechnology.

Dutch Research Council Veni grant for Robin de Kruijff

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a Veni grant to researcher Robin de Kruijff of the Reactor Institute Delft (RID) for her research on a new type of radionuclide generator which, among other things, can obviate the global bottleneck in cancer research. The new generator will, moreover, be the first recyclable one of its kind. “I hope that my new type of generator will ultimately make diagnostic treatments much more accessible and less dependent on a handful of reactors”, says De Kruijff.

Spotlight on aggressive cancer cells

Metastases in cancer are often caused by a few abnormal cells. These behave more aggressively than the other cancer cells in a tumour. Miao-Ping Chien and Daan Brinks are working together, from two different universities, on a method to detect these cells. Their research has now been published in Nature.

New Cas9 model maps DNA cutting behaviour for the first time

Researchers from the TU Delft have come up with a physical-based model that establishes a quantitative framework on how gene-editing with CRISPR-Cas9 works, and allows them to predict where, with what probability, and why targeting errors (off-targets) occur. This research, which has been published in Nature Communications, gives us a first detailed physical understanding of the mechanism behind the most important gene editing platform of today.

Cell unstuck: how a glue-like protein can make our cells move

An essential aspect of the cells in our body is their ability to move, to repair certain tissues or chase intruders, for example: but how do they do it? Scientists from TU Delft, AMOLF and Utrecht University reveal how glue-like proteins called crosslinkers could not only help to hold the whole cell together passively, but surprisingly cause the cell to move as well. The research is now published in PNAS.

ERC Proof of Concept Grant for Arjen Jakobi

Arjen Jakobi (Department of Bionanoscience) receives the ERC Proof of Concept Grant for his groundbreaking research on cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM). "This grant will allow us to take our new CryoChip technique for high resolution images of protein molecules to the next level for the development of new drugs," says Jakobi.

Effectiveness of 2G and 3G has declined

At the request of the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, researchers from TU Delft, UMC Utrecht and Populytics investigated the extent to which the various types of COVID certificates (coronatoegangsbewijs, CTB) can help to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in society. The 3G (vaccinated, recovered, tested) and 2G (vaccinated, recovered) rules are currently a lot less effective in curbing the spread of the virus than they were two months ago. A 1G policy (only people who have recently tested negative are given access) is much more effective. But, even if a 1G policy were to be introduced today, the reproduction number would not drop below 1.0.

Super-fast technique measures heme enzyme reaction as it happens

Researchers from TU Delft found an unexpected new enzyme intermediate at work in enzymes that contain heme, a cofactor that’s vital for many processes in our body such as the breaking down of toxins in the liver. The researchers used new, rapid techniques, which are less invasive than existing methods. The results, published in ACS Catalysis, increase our understanding of heme proteins and enzymes and how they can be engineered.
Richard Goossens on the podcast episode #24 cover

Out of the Blue #24: Clashing Disciplines in Healthcare - Richard Goossens

A design researcher and a doctor sit together for a coffee in a hospital café. They discuss and draw on a napkin what a joined education programme for designers and medical students could look like. What if doctors understood design for healthcare, and designers the healthcare world?
Maaike Kleinsmann podcast episode cover

Out of the Blue #23: A Designer walks into a Hospital - Maaike Kleinsmann

How can design research improve our health, and is it better to design for prevention or for the cure? We kick off our triptych on Design & Health with Delft Design Professor Maaike Kleinsmann. Ianus and co-host Marc talk with her about working with healthcare professionals as a design researcher, what all this new remote-sensing health-tech for consumers means for personal health challenges and the issue of health data and privacy. And dealing with Strava-men in tight lycra suits.

New method predicts drug response of cancer patients

Researchers from Delft University of Technology and the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) have developed an algorithm to predict patient response to anti-cancer drugs. This allows us to identify more rapidly if some drugs can have a positive effect on a specific patient, even for complicated medicines such as chemotherapies where response is typically hard to predict. This method is called TRANSACT and makes use of the wealth of data previously collected through research with cell lines.