To interact with our environment (e.g. to catch a ball) we need to have our hands at the right time at the right place and ready to interact with an object. Although we are used to take this for granted (how often do you think about the position of your hands?), much is unknown about how we know where our hands are in dynamic interactions. In the research proposed here, we expand the knowledge on static position sense of the hand to dynamic position sense by studying position sense during movements. Furthermore, the aspect of preparations in timing and forces to interact with an object is to be studied. How and when do people prepare for interaction with the objects? Combining these two aspects leads to a very interesting project in which we can determine spatial and temporal control of our hands while interacting with objects around us during movements.

As antibiotic resistances are on the rise and the need of effective treatments of infectious diseases is currently clearer than ever, the bacterium Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus gained attention because of its ability to kill a wide range of bacteria. Its biphasic life cycle consists of the non-proliferative attack phase and the growth phase, where Bdellovibrio performs non-binary cell division inside its prey. Bdellovibrio expresses a completely different set of genes during the attack versus the growth phase. The nucleoid of attack phase cells is extremely condensed and excludes free proteins. This raises the exciting hypothesis that nucleoid compaction is a novel mechanism to regulate gene expression globally in a cell-cycle-dependent manner. To tackle this, I will first establish the necessary methods for high-throughput analysis and live-cell microscopy of Bdellovibrio during the growth phase so I can quantify the nucleoid during the cell cycle for the first time. I will explore potential mechanisms of nucleoid compaction by assessing nucleoid associated proteins (NAPs) and the relation of compaction to transcription and translation. Finally, I will experimentally test the connection between local nucleoid accessibility and gene expression. Together, this will provide new fundamental knowledge, and possibly reveal a novel mechanism of gene expression control.

As a medieval invention, the art of printing had a great influence on spirituality and visual culture at the end of the Middle Ages. Research into the texts (how did printers (or their collaborators) edit texts?), the presentation of the texts (layout and illustrations) and traces of readers (e.g. notes) shows that printed books offered a platform for new texts as well as new versions of popular texts. The printed book offered readers the space to adapt it to their personal wishes and, if desired, to combine it with handwritten texts, leading to a symbiosis between handwritten and printed books.