Dissertations
Two thesis defenses with distinction “cum laude”!!
Rutger Gjaltema defended his thesis entitled “Modifications of collagen and chromatin in ECM-related disease. Uncovering therapuetic targets for fibrosis and cancer” on November 9th . Rutger Gjaltema was appointed by Prof RA Bank and Prof MG Rots (both Medical Biology) on a Netherlands Institute for Regenerative Medicine project to address epigenetics in fibrosis. He dissected transcriptional and posttranslational processes involved in activation of a profibrotic enzyme (lysyl hydroxylase 2). Moreover, he identified several chromatin-modifying enzymes that influence transcriptional regulation of genes that function in various pro-fibrotic processes. Finally, he successfully interfered with the transcriptional activity of disease-related genes by epigenetic editing and could induce long term silencing as well as re-expression of target genes. The full manuscript can be downloaded here.
Monique van der Wijst defended her thesis entitled “Reactive oxygen species in health and disease; finding the right balance” on September 14th. Monique van der Wijst was appointed on a NWO ChemThem project of Prof MG Rots (Medical Biology, UMCG) and Prof GJ Roelfes (Stratingh Institute, RUG) to unravel links between oxidative stress, cancer and epigenetics. Within four years, she explored mitochondrial targeting systems to selectively induce oxidative stress and addressed how oxidative stress affects epigenetic landscapes. Moreover, she reduced DNA hypermethylation at particular tumor suppressor genes by epigenetic editing AND re-engineered these editing systems to address the controversial field of mitochondrial epigenetics. The full manuscript can be downloaded here.
Reactive oxygen species in health and disease; finding the right balance
Sabine Stolzenburg
| Last modified: | 25 May 2021 12.24 p.m. |