Dr. Huub J.M. de Groot is a professor of biophysical organic chemistry at the University of Leiden. He received PhD in solid-state physics at the University of Leiden in 1986. He has supervised 46
PhDs and 11 postdocs. He is a member of several boards, scientific review committees and councils (NERA, Sun-to-X, uNMR, SUNERGY Board, CeNT scientific council, Euromar, Sun to X). His research interests include artificial photosynthesis, magnetic resonance microscopy, photosynthesis, quantum chemical modelling, responsive matrices, and solid-state NMR. He aims to understand the fundamentals of direct energy conversion by proteins, complexes, membranes and cells in natural photosynthesis for the chemical design of responsive matrices for direct energy conversion with high yield by artificial photosynthesis.
Dr. Herman P. Spaink is a professor of molecular cell biology at Leiden University. He is responsible for teaching all first-year cell biology at the IBL. He also teaches courses in the master phase of the biology MCB program and in second- and third-year bachelor courses. Over 35 students have obtained their PhD under his supervision. He has been a member of over two hundred PhD promotion committees in various natural science disciplines in the Netherlands and abroad. His research interest is understanding how biological signal transduction functions at a molecular level. A central theme is the investigation of intercellular communication, particularly the communication of cells of one organism with another. For this, a highly multidisciplinary approach using methods from biology, chemistry, physics, and bioinformatics is used. For all biological research questions, the zebrafish is now used as an animal model in combination with cell culture and microbial-based techniques.
