Dr. Liedewij Laan

Research Theme(s): Cell Biology and Synthetic systems

Research Interests: Cell Polarity and Pattern Formation, Evolutionary Cell Biophysics, Predicting and Controlling Evolution

Biography

Laan (1980) studied Applied Physics (cum laude) at Twente University. She performed her master and PhD research (cum laude) in the Biophysics group of Marileen Dogterom at AMOLF (at that time), investigating how the microtubule cytoskeleton organizes the cellular interior, using (synthetic) experimental- and theoretical approaches. She spent part of her PhD at the EMBL in Heidelberg and at the MPI for Complex Systems in Dresden. For her PhD work she received an honorary mention for the Christiaan Huygens Prize in Physics. As a post-doc she went, with a Rubicon and a HFSP cross disciplinary fellowship to the lab of Andrew Murray at Harvard University to study evolutionary dynamics in the yeast polarity network.

Since 2014 she leads an independent research group (laanlab.tudelft.nl) which pioneers the emerging field of evolutionary cell biophysics, focusing on the functional network for polarity establishment in budding yeast. She received an ERC Starting Grant, a VIDI personal grant and an Aspasia grant from NWO and is a Delft Technology Fellow. Laan is a dedicated teacher, who taught several courses in the Nanobiology program, i.e. Physics 1b, and Physical Biology of the Cell, and was a member of the Board of Examiners (2016-2020). She has co-organized the following international meetings: Dutch Biophysics meeting (2016/2017), a Lorentz meeting on “Evolution of Biomolecular Networks” (2018), a Lorentz meeting on “Synthetic Cells” (2020), an Origins2021 meeting (2021), and has been invited to  >40 international meetings. She is a board member of the Netherlands Society for Evolutionary Biology, member of the Origins Center Steering group and a member of the Dutch Physics Council (Raad voor Natuurkunde). She has participated in several grant selection panels. She is an enthusiastic ambassador for Women in Science and for cross-fertilization between Art and Science.

Last but not least, she is dedicated to bridging the gap between public policy and governance on the one hand, and science and technology on the other. Therefore, in 2022, she founded Beta in Bestuur Beleid “BiBB”. BiBB is a group of active scientists and policy makers, ranging from PhD students to a dean, that want to inspire and provide opportunities for young STEM scientists to contribute to politics and public administration, because STEM knowledge is urgently needed there to solve the big challenges that society faces today. One of BiBB’s actions is the organization of a national yearly career day for young STEM Scientists.

For further information regarding current research and available projects, visit Laan Lab