Ivana Drienovská

Enzyme Superheroes

Ivana Drienovská specializes in designing enzymes for reactions that do not occur in nature. We can use these to make new drugs, capture CO2 or even break down plastic.

Nongnuch Artrith

Harnessing AI for a Greener Future

Using AI, Nongnuch Artrith predicts which new materials have the most potential. This way, AI can help us create a greener future.

Cornelia Welte

Electricity from Greenhous Gas Eating Microbes

Cornelia Welte is working on a battery in which methane is converted into green energy through microbes.

Maritza Rovers

A customized cellular living environment

Maritza Rovers builds a microgel that supports damaged cells in our bodies.

Valerie Bloem

Plastic can be fantastic!

More than 95% of all plastic is thrown away and incinerated, and only a small proportion is remelted into new plastic. BlueAlp is working on a solution to make circular plastics.

Wilfried Martens

Building with (pruning) wood

Every year we produce some 22.5 million kilograms of construction waste in the Netherlands. That is as much as 25% of all our waste. Burning construction waste and wood is not efficient. At Beyond Wood, we produce building materials from pruning waste that can be used more than once.

Stephan Hacker

Search for weak points in bacteria

Stephan Hacker uses moleculas to find weak spots in resistant bacteria so that we can continue to develop new antibiotics.

Maurits de Roo

Doing chemical reactions using electricity instead of chemicals

Maurits de Roo is looking for a way to use electricity to create molecules without using fossil fuels.

Pascal Vermeeren

Unraveling chemical mysteries with new models

Pascal Vermeeren develops models (algorithms) to discover and unravel the mysterious world of surface chemistry.

Nico Claassens

Making products of the future from CO2 with bacteria

Nico Claassens wants to use bacteria to make plastics using CO2 from the air as a carbon source instead of (crude) oil.

Jimmy Faria

Joining forces with foams

In the chemical industry, foam has a bad reputation for blocking catalysts. Jimmy Faria designs special catalysts with coatings that ensure they stay in contact with the gas and liquid.

Anastassis Perrakis

Proteins for the people

Proteins make our skin and hair, clean our bodies of harmful chemicals, break down our food, tone our muscles or carry oxygen from our lungs to all the cells in our body. By switching off certain proteins, we can also prevent cancer cells from multiplying. Tassos Perrakis studies the structure of proteins to understand how they interact and how that impacts cancer.

Alina Chanaewa

Sensing carbon fibre composite cracks

Aircraft can save fuel if we make them lighter. Carbon fibre composites are light and strong, but they need to be inspected regularly for damage. Eddytec has developed an efficient method to quickly assess the material.

Suzan Stelloo

Exploring early human embryogenesis using stem cells

Have you ever wondered how a tiny fertilised egg can become a perfect human being? Human stem cells can form embryo-like structures under certain conditions. Suzan Stelloo is studying proteins to find out more about what causes birth defects and diseases at this stage.

Harith Gurunarayanan

Het raadsel van chemische reacties ontsluieren

Did you know that we use a material called a catalyst to make products like plastics and fuels? If we could understand how this catalyst works during the chemical reaction, we could make sure it is doing its job properly. Harith Gurunarayanan is developing a tiny sensor that can monitor and analyse in real time the molecules produced during high-temperature reactions.

Fabian Eisenreich

Sunlight-driven plastic recycling

Plastic is usually recycled by melting it down and making new products from it, but this process often damages the plastic. Fabian Eisenreich is investigating how we can use light to break down plastic. In this way, he hopes to reduce the amount of plastic waste that pollutes our environment.

Roy van der Meel

Making your own tailor-made drugs

Imagine being able to make your own drugs. Roy van der Meel is investigating whether he can use natural building blocks such as fats to transport mRNA codes around the body. He hopes that in the future he will be able to give patients tailor-made treatments, literally making their own medicine.

Arnon Lesage

Convert sunlight for optimal plant growth

Our planet needs more food and we don't want to use more land for agriculture. So we need to find a way to ensure that a plant uses all the energy from sunlight. Arnon Lesage is developing a flexible film that can convert sunlight according to the specific needs of each plant.

Thomas Hansen

Tools for a molecular cabinet

In the lab, chemists put molecules together to make new substances. To do this, they are constantly looking for new types of tools. Thomas Hansen uses computer simulations to design these new tools in advance.

Nienke van Dongen

Uroscopy on a microfluidic chip

One in three people will develop some form of cancer. The earlier cancer is detected, the better the patient's chances of survival. Nienke van Dongen uses microfluidic chips to detect cancer DNA in urine.

Arnaud Thevenon

Towards a zero-waste plastic

More than 70% of our plastics end up in landfills or are lost to the environment. But we cannot do without plastics. That is why Arnaud Thevenon creates plastics with a closed life cycle.

David Rieder

The great catalyst bake off

Catalysts are the secret ingredients that speed up reactions, but it takes chemists tens of thousands of tries to find a good catalyst recipe. David Rieder uses a computer to become a better cook.

Olivier Segers

Blackteria paint it black

Ultra-black pigments like melanin can be useful, but their production is energy-intensive and polluting. That is why Olivier Segers is working with genetically modified bacteria that can produce melanin like tiny factories.

Barbara Malheiros

Velcro made from DNA

Did you know that the DNA found in humans, plants and animals can work like Velcro? Barbara Malheiros uses this trick to create exotic materials such as smarter biosensors and diagnostic tools.

Tizian Ramspoth

Improving coating technique sustainability with catalysts

We coat things to protect them. Making solid cross-linked coatings requires high temperatures. But if you heat plastic or wood that much, it burns. Tizian Ramspoth is on a quest to find out how we can still coat these kinds of materials.

Paques Biomaterials

Natural alternative to plastic

Plastics break down in nature into small particles called microplastics, which accumulate in the food chain. Paques Biomaterials developed an alternative to plastic that does not create microplastics.

Torwash

Toilets as source for green chemicals

We don't do anything useful with sewage sludge now, even though it contains useful substances. Torwash developed a process to convert the sludge into granules that can be used for green chemistry.

Beate Stevens

Insight into air quality

Particulates are very small particles in the air, with a maximum size of one-sixth the thickness of a hair. These particles enter your lungs through your nose. The smaller the particle, the deeper it gets into the lungs and the more harmful it is, especially in combination with lung disease. Aerocount developed a way to measure the amount of particulate matter in the air.

Tanja Moerdijk

Edible packaging from seaweed

Empty food packaging makes up a large part of our plastic waste, but packaging is also very useful. That's why Tanja Moerdijk is developing packaging materials that are both degradable and edible.

Wessel van der Woude

Recycling 2.0 with plastic analysis

We recycle only a small fraction of all plastic. That's because there are so many different types of plastic. Veridis is developing a technique to determine which types of plastic are in our waste.

Sven Askes

Steering reactions with nanoparticles and light

A lot of catalytic reactions happen by means of very fine powders of silver and gold, called nanoparticles. When we shine light on these nanoparticles during a chemical reaction, very different reaction mechanisms are suddenly possible. Sven Askes uses light and metal nanoparticles to steer reactions in the right direction.

Johan Visser

Pasting plants with bioplastic

Johan Visser is working on a bioplastic with an adhesive effect to which plant material such as fruit and vegetables can bind. You can use this to stick plants to the walls or ceiling of a greenhouse, thus increasing the capacity in greenhouses.

Stephanie Rensink

Protecting wood with fungi

To keep wood beautiful and good, it needs a protective coating. How can we do this in an environmentally friendly way? Stephanie Rensink researches a special fungus coating that protects wood from the sun.

Bas Tuenter

From disposables to Sustainables

There’s a lot of plastic waste originating in the lab, which is hard to recycle because of the difficulty in removing the contamination. Sustainables succeeds in cleaning the plastic waste so you can start reusing it.

Alexander Kostenko

Making the fastest microscale 3D printing technology

Production happens on an increasingly smaller scale. However, smaller often means more expensive. Photosynhtetic designed an algorithm for a 3D-printer that can produce materials on a microscale by firing microscopic beams of light at liquid chemicals turning them into solid polymers.

Thomas Vos & Robin Coes

Reducing emissions with organic fertilizers

A plant needs many different types of nutrition in the right proportions. Technically that’s quite a challenge. We know what plants need and we collect this from various sources. We eventually process these sources into a high-quality fertilizer pellet.

Jos Malda

Printing living cartilage implants

Our bodies cannot repair the collagen structure of the cartilage when it is damaged. Jos Malda uses 3D bioprinting technologies to create living cartilage implants, which replace the original damaged tissue and bring back the strength.

Synvenio

Connecting chemistry and biology

Language barriers hinder collaboration between chemistry and life science. Synvenio is removing some of these barriers to create new opportunities. They developed a platform to make chemical methods accessible to researchers with limited chemical knowledge.

Mike Nuiten

Vegan fungal leather

Traditional leather is made from the skins of animals. This involves the use of chromium salts, among other things, but these are toxic to humans and the environment. Mycelium, the underground network of fungi, may be able to eliminate these drawbacks.

Tim den Hartog

Making chemical industry more sustainable with light

We all have a chemical reactor in our bodies that is powered by sunlight. Did you know that we can use this same principle to make the chemical industry more sustainable? Unfortunately, implementation is lagging behind, which is why Tim den Hartog is trying to bring together knowledge from the High-Tech equipment sector and the Chemical industry.

Sobhan Neyrizi

Turning carbon dioxide into fuel

All around us in the air there is CO2. We would like to reuse this waste product, for example, as fuel. That is why Sobhan Neyrizi investigates how we can convert CO2 in a sustainable way into useful molecules.

Annemarie Maan

A living without sticking

Dirt is everywhere. Some objects are easy to clean, others are more difficult. How nice would it be if the cleaning of sewers, for example, became redundant? That is why Annemarie Maan is doing research into dirt-repellent layers.

Riccardo Levato

Bio-inks for printing living tissues

Prosthesis are widely used, but have one drawback: they degrade over time. That is why Riccardo Levato is researching the 3D printing of tissues, in which he uses living cells.

Monique Wekking, CCO

Plant-based aromatics for durable coatings

Many products have a protective coating. Monique Wekking and her colleagues at Relement develop environmentally friendly coatings made from plant-based material instead of fossil fuels.

Evaluna Márquez

Eco-friendly ingredients made from coffee waste

Every day, many cups of coffee are made, which results in a great deal of coffee waste. Evaluna Márquez and her colleagues at Caffe Inc. are committed to recycling this waste and turning it into eco-friendly ingredients.

Isabelle Kohler

Mirror images of designer drugs: does it matter?

Molecules can be mirror images of each other and therefore have different properties. These differences can be of great importance for drugs on the effect on our body. That's why Isabelle Kohler is researching left and right handed drugs.

Anja Wilmes

Personalised medicine

Every person has his or her own unique DNA. As a result, medicines sometimes work differently in one person or the other. Anja Wilmes is investigating possibilities to make medicines more personal, so that they better match the DNA of your body.

Leon Smook

Can you smell without your nose?

Your nose is (of course) the organ that allows you to smell. But not all smells can be perceived by humans. That is why Leon Smook is investigating the possibilities of an artificial nose, which can identify odors at a molecular level.

Barbara Zarzycka

3D structure-based medicine design

Proteins have diverse functions associated with their 3D structure. This structure is also very important for medicines, which often act on proteins. Barbara Zarzycka investigates these interactions and tries to predict the effect of (future) medicines.

Trevor A. Hamlin

Unraveling the mechanisms behind a chemical reaction

There are many mechanisms underlying chemical reactions. If you understand this well, you can use this knowledge to develop products efficiently and sustainably. Trevor Hamlin studies and models reactions with quantum chemical simulations.

Sandra Loerakker

Predicting tissue regeneration with computational models

Tissues respond to all kinds of external stimuli, if necessary they can even adapt to changing circumstances. Sandra Loerakker studies the behavior of healthy and diseased tissues and uses computer models to predict and control tissue repair.

Pamela Habibovic

Better bones with smart granules

Bones provide strength to our body, but the exact chemical composition of bones is difficult to imitate. Still, there are smart solutions to repair major bone damage. And that is what Pamela Habibovic is researching: simple granules that can help patients.

Marleen Kamperman

Glue inspired by nature

Some animals have extraordinary and clever properties, for example a spider can make a very thin and strong material for a spider web. Marleen Kamperman researches the chemical principles of these kind of natural processes and wants to imitate them for smart applications.

Danny Broere

A chemical toolbox for the future

Oil is an important raw material for many products, but unfortunately it is not very sustainable. There are alternatives where plant based waste serves as a raw material, but this requires a different chemical approach. That is why Danny is researching possibilities to use tricks from nature so that we no longer need oil.

Eva Blokker

Modelling molecules on the computer

To make plastics, you need an initiator. That is a molecule that splits in two, allowing the chain reaction for the long chain of the plastic to start. But the initiators that are being used now release undesirable volatile substances and a lot of heat. Therefore, Eva is using computer simulations to look for new initiators.

Vivian Yam

OLEDs to save energy

Right now we are using incandescent lighting, like the tungsten lamp and so on, which are highly energy inefficient, because most of the energy is lost as heat. We are therefore very much interested in organic light emitting diodes, OLEDs. Vivian Yam talks about her research towards this topic.

Anika Nagelkerke

A miniature body in a lab

If you are ill, you want a medicine to get well again. Before we can give that medicine to you, we research the exact effects on laboratory-grown cells. The most used method for this is a petri dish, where we grow one layer of cells to which we can add the medicine. But you are not a petri dish. Therefore, we need more relevant methods to grow cells, to mimic illness in a better way.

Javier Garcia-Martinez

More fuel from oil

Refineries produce a lot of CO2. Of course, they prefer to produce transportation fuels. Chemistry, and in particular catalysis, can be used to make this process more efficient. By improving catalysts, more of the crude oil that is in the barrel goes on to produce gasoline and diesel, and less CO2 is produced.

Patricia Dankers

Reversing organ damage

After damage, the human body can often repair or regenerate an organ. But what if an organ cannot repair itself? Then scar tissue forms. And that is what Patricia Dankers and her group wants to be able to reverse.

John van der Oost

Changing DNA as desired

Ten years ago, John van der Oost and his team were the first ones to describe the much discussed CRISPR-Cas system and to use it to change DNA as desired. An invention that changed the world. He explains his research in in one minute.

Hung Chien Lin

A sustainable coating

Coatings do not only bring some colors to your home, but also provide a layer of protection on the object. Hung Chien Lin is working on a sustainable and low-energy method of making them. He talks about it in one minute.

Zhenan Bao

A skin for robots

Imagine how we can help patients who lost their limbs to regain their touch. Or how we can help robots to learn how to work safely with humans. The answer is ...

Laura Rossi

A flowing material that is hard as steel

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to make materials with any properties we like? For instance, something that can flow like water, but can be as hard as steel when needed. Laura Rossi of the TU Delft ...

Bert Meijer

In love with molecules

Through the ages, chemists have made a lot of new molecules that allow us to live on this earth with this many people. New drugs, ...

Dan Jing Wu

A beating biomaterial

There are people whose heart does not function well and therefore can die any moment. They often have to wait for a long time for a transplant heart. Researcher ...

Krzysztof Matyjaszewski

Solving big problems on a smaller scale

By going to smaller and smaller dimensions, we can solve big problems. Krzysztof Matyjaszewski makes rings, combs and brushes at nanoscale. With their unique properties, they ...

Katrien Bernaerts

Plastic from sugar beet waste

What do packaging materials, paint and a coffee machine have in common? They all contain polymers, that are now made of fossil materials. But, those are being ...

Daniel Nocera

Feeding the world with light

Imagine you could produce fuel and food from sunlight. Professor Daniel Nocera of Harvard University did just this by using artificial photosynthesis. He uses ...

Charlotte Vogt

Solving climate change with a catalyst

We haven’t heard about acid rain in years. Apparently, we were able to solve that problem. But how? And can we do the same for CO2, that ...

Ben Feringa

Science fiction will become reality

What if your car could clean itself? And a scratch in its paint could repair itself? Ben Feringa, Nobel prize winner in chemistry, explains why he made a car of a few nanometers big ...

Nathaniel Martin

Reaching up the tree for a new generation of antibiotics

Did you know that in the past 50 years, only three new classes of antibiotics were discovered? Because of growing antibiotic resistance, we do need to find new classes of antibiotics. Nathaniel Martin ...

Ilja Voets

What we can learn from South Pole fish

An icefish doesn’t freeze to death in the ice cold waters of the South pole by creating anti-freeze proteins. Ilja Voets is unraveling the working ...

Vincent Voet

A chemical solution to polluted plastic

A lot of plastic waste cannot be recycled because it is polluted with, for example, dye. By cutting the long plastic molecules into smaller pieces, the pollution can ...

Lotte Metz

Finding the Ronaldo of the nanoparticles

Imagine you’re a soccer coach, and you want to find out who the star players in your team are. But all you see from the game, is the end result. How do you ...

Lukas Helmbrecht

New materials inspired by nature

What if we could create materials in the same, effortless manner as nature grows coral? Lukas Helmbrecht researches ...

Francesco Mattarozzi

CO2 recycling

Imagine a world where we would be able to recycle the harmful gasses that we continuously release into our atmosphere, just as easily as we do with our household waste. Francesco is working ...

Paula Dalcin Martins

Small microorganisms and big challenges

Tiny microorganisms are living in the ocean floor. Some of them produce or consume methane: a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide. By studying these ...

Merel van ‘t Hoff

Looking for the origin of life

Did you know we have found over 3000 planets around other stars than our sun? And still the Earth is, as far as we know, the only planet with life. So how did life originate? To investigate this ...

Ingrid Dijkgraaf

Tick saliva against cardiovascular diseases

Ticks are mostly notorious for the diseases they transfer onto humans and animals. But did you know we can use ticks in the battle against cardiovascular diseases? For this, Ingrid Dijkgraaf investigates ...

Ghislaine Vantomme

Living Plastics

How great would it be if a phone screen could repair itself? Ghislaine Vantomme explores strategies to bring materials to life ...

Tosca van Hooy

Can we print an implant?

The weakest link in 3D printing is the material. Tosca van Hooy from Zuyd University of Applied Sciences conducts research into materials that produce such good results that we will soon be able to see them ...

Saskia Lindhoud

Primordial soup and wastewater

How life evolved from the primordial soup is still a mystery, but we have ideas about the molecules which were present in this soup. Saskia Lindhoud investigates how to bring these molecules together in structures and ...

Frans Bianchi

Spying with your immune system

How does our immune system actually recognize a disease? Through espionage. The immune system collects information by eating and breaking down a diseased cell or bacterium. From the remains of that diseased cell, the system retrieves information to arm itself against the disease. But we do not yet know exactly how this works. Frans Bianchi is building....

Evelien Baeten

Efficient use of raw materials through flow chemistry

We use more raw materials than the earth produces. In the long run that is not sustainable. Evelien Baeten, of the Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, is exploring how we can optimize industrial processes in such a way that ...

Jeroen Codée

Cotton candy you can’t eat

All cells have a kind of jacket of sugar molecules. Cancer cells and bacteria have a different sugar coat around them than our normal, healthy cells. The better you understand that layer, the better you can make medicines. But you can not just remove the layer from the cells. That is why Jeroen Codée builds this in his lab. And he....

Wiebe de Vos

Smart membranes, made in water

Membranes - indispensable for kidney dialysis and water purification - are always made with large amounts of toxic and environmentally unfriendly solvents. Wiebe de Vos and his team have developed a new method.....

Kim Bonger

Why our immune system sometimes attacks us

Our immune system is capable of recognizing intruders and destroying them so we don’t get sick. But sometimes our immune system also attacks our own body. We call this an auto-immune disease. This is caused by enzymes that place a kind of flags on our own ...

Sander van Kasteren

Can the arms race with bacteria be won?

Our immune system is in a constant battle with the bacteria in and around our body. Good bacteria our restrained and bad bacteria are brutally killed. But more and more bacteria evolve to withstand these attacks, which causes us to lose the battle. Sander van Kasteren maps these bacteria and ...

Peter Korevaar

Blurring the lines between living and dead materials

The materials we use nowadays are only good at one thing, but in nature that is very different. Trees and plants adapt constantly and react on their surroundings, because their chemical composition allows them to do this. Peter Korevaar wants to unravel the secret behind ...

Evan Spruijt

Where do our cells come from?

We know quite well how life evolved from a single cell to people, but how this very first cell developed is still unclear. This cell was formed by molecules that came together just in the right way. Evan Spruijt tries to understand this process by mimicking it with small sticking drops.

Anne Jans

Why do I lock molecules in a cage?

Molecules are just like people. If you put many of them in a small, cosy space like a café, they will react very different than when they have plenty of space, for example in a bleak, empty sports hall. Anne Jans takes advantage of this and puts molecules in molecular cages. With her approach she hopes ...