Elena Daoutsali and Ronald Buijsen from the NeuroD research group were awarded the Sargenti Research Grant, organized by the Neuroscience Research Theme. The grant was for the field of neurodegenerative diseases and made possible through a donation from the legacy of mr. Sargenti to the Leiden University Fund. Together with the group of Saskia Lesnik […]
Willeke van Roon-Mom appointed as Professor
As of 1 October, our group head, Willeke van Roon-Mom, has been appointed as Leiden professor of Human Genetics, in particular of neurodegenerative disorders! So we now have a real Professor in our group. “My entire scientific career I have been working on hereditary brain disorders that are caused by problems. Together with colleagues, I […]
Antisense oligonucleotides as a therapy for Dutch-type Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy (D-CAA) – New publication
After 4 years of hard work, our paper “Antisense oligonucleotide-induced amyloid precursor protein splicing modulation as a therapeutic approach for Dutch-type cerebral amyloid angiopathy” has been published in Nucleic Acid Therapeutics (DOI: 10.1089/nat.2021.0005). In this study we explored the use of an antisense oligonucleotide (AON) as a therapeutic approach for Dutch-type cerebral amyloid angiopathy (D-CAA), a […]
New research project on FOXP1 syndrome
On 1st of June 2021 we started a new research project on FOXP1 syndrome. To do most of the work in this project Elena Daoutsali came back to us, after she left when her PhD period was finished. Good to have her back! Forkhead-box protein P1 (FOXP1) is part of the forkhead-box family of transcription […]
Dutch Center for RNA Therapeutics
On Rare Disease day, 28th of February, last year, Willeke van Roon-Mom, along with others in the LUMC, Radboudumc and Erasmus MC started the Dutch Center for RNA Therapeutics (DCRT). After exactly 1 year, the website www.rnatherapy.nl was launched on which information can be found about DCRT and updates will be posted on things going […]
Summary latest advances in delivery of RNA therapies
Researchers from the NeuroD group in collaboration with other participants from an EU COST Action summarise the latest advances in delivery of RNA therapies. Drugs that target RNA were considered a curiosity until recently, used mainly in research in rare diseases and personalised therapies. However, this new research field has registered a boost in the […]
Being a student in COVID-time
I’m Abel Nijkerk, and I’m a master student Biomedical Sciences at Leiden University. Since February 2020, I’ve been conducting my internship here at the Neuro-D Lab Leiden under David Parfitt‘s supervision. One of the group’s main research lines is the development of an AON for Huntington’s Disease. The group’s been using different models to test […]
Going virtual – attending international conferences online
Written by: Elsa Kuijper “Good morning, good afternoon, good evening to you all!” – that’s how most of the presentations start at an international conference nowadays. Joining the virtual meetings from home at different parts of the world, an early morning meeting for one can be during the night for the other. In the beginning […]
Neuro-D Lab Leiden featured in SCAsource spotlight
The SCAsource website is a website on which information about SCAs and related ataxia diseases is written in easy language by SCA scientists. This way, they want to make this information accessible for ataxia patients and families. Since this year they have a topic in which labs that do research on ataxia diseases can introduce […]
Successful Online Dutch HD research symposium
On Friday November 13, we had a very successful, fully online Dutch HD research symposium November, organized by Harrie Kampinga and Greetje Noppert from the University Medical Center in Groningen. Before lunch we were updated on aggregation propensities of the mutant huntingtin protein by presentations from submitted abstracts from Mark van der Klok (RUG) using […]