Profile of the supervisor
Prof. dr. Alexander Kros received his PhD in the group of Prof. Nolte at the Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. After two years as a postdoctoral scholar in the group of Prof. Dave Tirrell at Caltech, USA, he became an assistant professor at Leiden University, the Netherlands. Since 2014 he is the chair of the Department of Supramolecular & Biomaterials Chemistry (SBC) within the chemical biology section of the Leiden Institute of Chemistry.
Expertise
Peptide assembly, supramolecular chemistry, catalysis, drug delivery, Lipid nanoparticles, RNA.
Profile of the research group
The research aim of SBC is to obtain curiosity-driven and fundamental molecular-level insight into transport phenomena in a range of topics, including targeted membrane fusion in an in vitro/in vivo environment, the transport of drugs across membranes and in supramolecular polymer derived biomaterials. To tackle these challenges, the SBC groups uses an interdisciplinary approach combining concepts from supramolecular and organic chemistry with molecular biology, liquid cell/cryo electron microscopy, in vivo studies in zebrafish and supported by theoretical modelling. Ever since the inception of the SBC group in 2014 it attracted talented scientists with external funding (3x ERC Starting grants; 2x VIDI, 1x VICI) supporting our long-term aim to obtain fundamental molecular-level insight into the origin of life. We also obtained major funding from NWO (XL grant) and via an ERC Synergy grant to use supramolecular approaches to develop novel therapies for glioblastoma. For this project we collaborate with the National Cancer Institute and develop (peptide and metal cage)-assemblies that catalyze prodrug-to-drug conversion locally and these approaches overlap with the planned studies in EVOLVE.
