Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences

Hemocytometric Parameters Associated with Bacterial and Viral Etiology in COPD Exacerbations: An Exploratory Analysis

Exacerbations of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (ECOPD) are often triggered by bacterial and viral infections, yet current diagnostic methods are time-consuming and biomarkers (e.g. C-reactive protein (CRP)) show limited accuracy in differentiating between these triggers....

Health-related interpretation of human biomonitoring results – new and updated human biomonitoring guidance values from PARC and HBM4EU

During the first three years of the Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals (PARC), we derived health-based human biomonitoring guidance values (HBM-GVs) for 11 substances to enable the direct health-related interpretation of human biomonitoring (HBM) results. HBM-...

Performance-based assessments in higher education: How ethnic background impacts stakeholders’ fairness perceptions of structured versus unstructured assessment methods

Performance-based assessments (PBAs), like literature reviews, evaluate students’ professional skills (e.g., analytical thinking). However, unclear evaluation criteria in PBAs lead to grading inconsistencies and biased outcomes. This diminishes perceptions of fairness among stake...

Plant functional type composition drives summer carbon cycling in an ombrotrophic peatland

Abstract Peatlands are globally important carbon sinks because plant CO 2 uptake outweighs microbial decomposition. These ecosystems are characterised by a distinct microtopography of hummocks and lawns, supporting vegetation communities composed of various plant functional types...

Controlling Linear and Non‐Linear Mechanics in Multicomponent Hydrogels Through Programmable Supramolecular and Covalent Interactions

ABSTRACT In our native extracellular matrix (ECM), hierarchical interactions—supramolecular and covalent—between multiple components give rise to complex mechanical properties. Reproducing such emergent properties in synthetic hydrogels remains challenging, particularly the non‐l...

Dosing and delivery of bacteriophage therapy in a murine wound infection model

Lytic bacteriophages, viruses that lyse (kill) bacteria, hold great promise for treating infections, including wound infections caused by antimicrobial-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa. However, dosing and delivery strategies for phage therapy remain underdeveloped. In a mouse wo...

Niche-specific immune and microbial signatures across the healthy upper respiratory tract mucosa

Host-microbe interactions in the upper respiratory tract (URT) niches that form the first line of defense against respiratory infections are incompletely understood. We profiled immune and microbial features using minimally invasive samples from 44 healthy adults (20–65 years), i...

Effects of GLP-1 receptor agonists on body weight and cardiovascular outcomes: a review

Obesity is a rapidly increasing global health challenge that is strongly linked to the cardiorenometabolic syndrome, cardiovascular morbidity, and mortality. Lifestyle interventions remain the cornerstone of treatment, but average long-term weight loss is modest and durable weigh...

Supporting clinical guidelines for opioid conversion to methadone and tapering to prevent withdrawal in critically ill children using physiology based pharmacokinetic modeling and simulation

Long-term opioid use is common in critically ill children and can cause withdrawal symptoms at discontinuation. To avoid withdrawal, short-acting opioids are usually converted into a long-acting drug, such as methadone, which is then carefully tapered. However, the exact conversi...

The Key Factor Toxicity: development and application of a toxic pressure characterization tool for surface and drinking water

The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) aims to ensure a status with sufficient good-quality water to sustain ecosystems and drinking water production. Water quality is, however, affected by complex mixtures of polluting substances, whose combined effects are poorly captured...

Multiscale physical effects of CpG methylation on DNA mechanics, nucleosome wrapping, and chromatin condensates

DNA methylation at CpG dinucleotides is a central epigenetic modification linked to transcriptional repression and heterochromatin formation, yet its physical impact on chromatin organization remains incompletely understood. Here, we integrate single-molecule force spectroscopy,...

Evolution of dipole-dipole dynamics in cold ammonia collisions

Data for submission of "Evolution of dipole-dipole dynamics in cold ammonia collisions" Authors: Yao Chang1, Andr´e J.A. van Roij1, Stach Kuijpers1, Sven Herbers, Etienne F. Walraven1,Tijs Karman1∗∗, Sebastiaan Y.T. van de Meerakker1∗∗1Radboud University, Institute for Molecules...

Can Organic Amendments Override Environmental Filtering of Soil Microbiomes? Evidence From 20 Years Old Agricultural Field Trials in Contrasting Tropical Sites

ABSTRACT Soil microbial communities underpin ecosystem functions critical for sustainable agriculture, yet our understanding of how long‐term management of tropical agroecosystems shapes these communities remains limited. This is particularly the case in sub‐Saharan Africa where...

A quadratic-scaling algorithm with guaranteed convergence for quantum coupled-channel calculations

Rigorous quantum dynamics calculations provide essential insights into complex scattering phenomena across atomic and molecular physics, chemical reaction dynamics, and astrochemistry. However, the application of the gold-standard quantum coupled-channel (CC) method has been fund...

Estimating differing causal roles of glutamate and GABA genes on brain and behavior in autism

Abstract The excitatory/inhibitory (E/I) imbalance theory suggests that excitatory and inhibitory alterations underlies autism characteristics. However, genetic underpinnings of this imbalance and its impact on brain function and behavior remains unclear. We explored causal links...

When networking pays unequally: proactive personality, gender and career satisfaction in Vietnam and the United States

Purpose This study investigates how proactive personality shapes employees’ career networking and career satisfaction across two national contexts and whether the career returns to networking differ by gender. Drawing on the social role theory, we argue that proactive employees a...

A Comprehensive Methodology for Estimating Yearly Plastic Pollution Loads in Rivers

Abstract Plastic pollution in freshwater systems represents a major global concern, as rivers serve as critical pathways between land-based sources and marine environments. Yet, inconsistencies are observed between estimated plastic inputs from land and concentrations in the ocea...

Photo‐Activated Merging Cascades in Droplet Swarms Upon Synergistic Solvation of Surfactants

ABSTRACT Chemically active droplets at fluid interfaces provide versatile building blocks for dynamic matter, yet most systems are limited to behavior encoded within individual droplets or simple pairwise interactions. Here, we report a strategy to generate non‐linear, cascading...

Soft-tissue thickness changes following bimaxillary surgery in skeletal class II malocclusion

OBJECTIVES: This retrospective cohort study evaluated regional facial soft-tissue thickness changes after bimaxillary surgery in skeletal Class Ⅱ patients and assessed their associations with skeletal movement and patient-related factors. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Class Ⅱ patients t...

Bacteriophage inactivation to prevent carry-over in preclinical assays with mycobacteria

Abstract Background Bacteriophage carry-over, the continued lytic activity of residual phages after experimental sampling, poses a significant challenge in bacteriophage research, potentially skewing experimental results, particularly in the context of preclinical studies where p...