Archive

GUSTO, NASA's stratospheric balloon observatory, will bring the Dutch multi-pixel camera system of SRON and TU Delft to the edge of space. It will perform a large-scale observation of the spectral lines from ionized atoms between the stars of the Milky Way. As an extra hardware contribution, SRON-TU Delft delivers a Fourier phase grating. The technique behind it is now published in Optics Express.

NWO has announced that Professor Lieven Vandersypen (TU Delft/QuTech) has been awarded the Spinoza Prize, the highest award in Dutch Science.

Rather than one key and one strong lock, biology often uses tens or hundreds of weaker links to bind parts together, such as cells membranes. This allows for selectivity and also reversibility: the binding can also be undone. Researcher Christine Linne and colleagues from Leiden University, TU Delft and Imperial College London first caught this phenomenon using spheres or colloids, and published September 1st in the journal PNAS.

Researchers from the technical universities of Delft and Munich have invented a new type of molecular trap that can hold a single protein in place for hours to study its natural behavior – a million times longer than before.

Researchers from the group of Stan Brouns (Delft University of Technology) have discovered a new CRISPR-Cas system that cuts RNA. The study will be published on August 26 in Science and is expected to offer many opportunities for the development of new applications in genetic research and biotechnology.

During an online presentation on 6 July, Dean Paulien Herder and Director of Education Chris Kleijn announced the Teachers of the Year of the Faculty of Applied Sciences. The winners are: Wim Bouwman (AP), Tom Burdyny (MST & CE), Caroline Wehrmann (SEC), Frank Hollmann (LST) and Margreet Docter (NB). Tom Burdyny was also named Teacher of the Year for the entire Faculty of Applied Sciences.

The ability of a cell to separate its own matter from its surroundings is a basic requirement for life. A team of researchers at AMOLF and Delft University of Technology have managed to create a synthetic container, or lipid vesicle, that is able to hold a range of different biological systems: from a cytoskeleton to entire E.coli bacteria. Their findings on this optimized cDICE method, which has the potential to reveal the inner workings of life, are published in ACS Synthetic Biology on DATE.

Two (former) Applied Sciences researchers, Mario Avellaneda Sarrio (Bionanoscience) and Mario Gely (Quantum Nanoscience) have been awarded a coveted Rubicon grant by NWO.

“I really enjoyed last year. I provide IT support for research and teaching activities, and I certainly had plenty of scope last year. At first, I thought it was great being able to work from home. I could have lunch with my two teenage daughters, for example. But my enthusiasm waned by mid-May, and I found myself feeling quite negative about the whole thing. I missed bumping into people and the inspiration I drew from such chance meetings. Your senses become deadened without input from outside. My solution was to go into the office once a week.

“My colleagues and I had just started our brand new course in Systems Engineering in February 2020. After three lectures we heard - on a Friday - that we had to make the transition to online teaching on Monday. So we got together, we arranged everything during the weekend and we made the switch. I was so proud of my colleagues and our 250 students, who showed amazing flexibility! Everybody just got together and made it work. It’s a great memory for me.”