Three Leiden researchers receive Rubicon Grant for research abroad
Chemist Liubov Belyaeva, psychologist Janna Marie Bas-Hoogendam and LUMC researcher Elisa Giacomelli have received a Rubicon Grand and will therefore be able to conduct research at a top institution abroad.
The Rubicon grant programme from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) is for promising researchers who have recently completed a PhD and are at the start of their academic career. This year three of the 16 Rubicons go to Leiden researchers.
Looking for the ultimate biosensors
Chemist Liubov Belyaeva will conduct research at the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London (UK). Graphene-based sensors can achieve record values of sensitivity, but existing designs have inherently poor reproducibility, limited scalability and high manufacturing costs. Belyaeva’s project aims to create novel architectures that avoid these disadvantages while maximising the sensitivity and adding more functionality.
Born to be shy?
Psychologist Janna Marie Bas-Hoogendam will conduct research at the Section on Development and Affective Neuroscience at the National Institute of Mental Health (US). Children with the innate tendency to avoid new situations are at risk of developing social anxiety later in life. Bas-Hoogendam will use a unique large collection of brain scans to explore which brain characteristics are associated with this risk.
Communication (and miscommunication) in ALS
LUMC researcher Elisa Giacomelli will conduct research at Memorial Sloan Kettering (US). ALS is a complex, non-autonomous disorder in which inflammation and aberrant activation of non-neuronal cell types play important roles. Giacomelli aims to understand how cells miscommunicate and which inflammatory pathways require modulation to ultimately prevent, or treat, ALS.