Vera van Noort has been appointed Professor in the field of Computational Biology within the Faculty of Science at the Institute of Biology from the 1st of February 2017. Van Noort’s expertise is in bioinformatics and her research focuses on the computational analysis of large-scale biological data…

Vera van Noort, professor in Computational Systems Biology at the KU Leuven (Belgium), is appointed holder of the rotating chair “Van der Klaauw Professor” for the year 2015-2016 at the Institute of Biology. Holders of the chair bring inspiring research and teaching in theoretical biology to the University.…

Leiden University has started a collaboration with the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland. The project includes the exchange of students and staff, joint research, and the organisation of seminars and conferences. Besides Leiden, the universities of Copenhagen, Newcastle and Innsbruck are also…

How do archaeologists test ideas about the evolution of the modern brain? Veni-researcher Geeske Langejans and then Master student Paul Kozowyk (Leiden University) prepared different Prehistoric glue recipes and tested these for strength in modern test machines at the Delft University of Technology.

A management strategy has been developed for field margins to reduce pesticide drift to non-target areas and to promote biodiversity on arable land. To this end, 3 and 6 m wide strips along the edges of winter wheat, sugar beet and potato crops have been left unsprayed with herbicides and insecticides…

This article describes the creation of an app that can help raise climate awareness and the action globally.

In populations with a seed-bank, individuals can temporarily become dormant and refrain from reproduction until they can become active again. The repository of all dormant individuals in the population is called the seed-bank. Seed-banks are observed in many taxa, including plants, bacteria and other…

Climate change is a challenge for both current and future generations. New biological resources have to be developed in order to meet the demand for energy as well as the demand for food.

Does a high quality prairie restoration in an urban/agricultural landscape provide invertebrates necessary for a sustainable ecosystem?

Natural vanilla flavor is one of the most important in the world. However, the cost of this flavor is expensive. Production of this flavor by alternative methods, could reduce the cost.

In recent decades, climate change has led to more frequent and severe drought events, causing serious consequences such as increased forest mortality and significant crop yield losses. Understanding how drought affects plants, especially economically important herbaceous species, is crucial for predicting…

The Metabolomics Facility of the University of Leiden has brought together two research groups from the Faculty of Science that are well-known for their expertise in two different fields: the Biomedical Metabolomics Facility Leiden, experts in clinical metabolomics and the Natural Products Laboratory,…

Leiden heeft de oudste botanische tuin van Nederland, gesticht in 1590.

Our facilities cover:

The treasure houses of Leiden's University Library and Naturalis house wonderful historical collections with dried plants and botanical drawings. Tinde van Andel, extraordinary professor of History of botany and gardens, studies these collections.

In the Life Science & Technology (LST) degree programme you study the functioning and applications of the living cell: the building block of all plants, humans, animals and micro-organisms. This can be your contribution to a clean and healthy world.

Promotor: Prof.dr. J. Kuiper, Co-promotor: Saskia C.A. de Jager

Bacteria have the ability to alter their morphology in order to adapt to changing environments.

The Leiden University Visual Ethnography collection has been added to Alexander Street Press, an educational streaming video service. The master’s specialization Visual Ethnography has supported many talented individuals to produce inspiring films. About 70 master’s thesis films of the past 8 years…

It is mostly rainfall and soil acidity that determine which microbes survive in a particular habitat and which do not. This knowledge is important for maintaining biodiversity. Leiden environmentalists contributed to the research. Publication in Nature on 1 August.

Join-in courses zijn MA-cursussen over middeleeuwse onderwerpen gegeven binnen vastgestelde MA-programma's van de zes deelnemende universiteiten van de Onderzoekschool. Op aanvraag zijn deze vakken toegankelijk voor studenten van andere (Nederlandse) universiteiten. De cursusbelasting en het aantal…

For the first time, international researchers have mapped the network of bacteria on coral reefs. They write about it in Nature Communications (9 April). Professor by special appointment Nicole de Voogd (Naturalis Biodiversity Center & Institute of Environmental Sciences) and two of her PhD students…

Language courses from February onwards

At CWTS we have a long tradition of organising a weekly research seminar in which speakers present their research in the area of science studies and discuss their work with the audience. The seminar normally takes place on Friday, 15.00-16.15h (Central European Time). Presentations are given in Engl…

Pathogenic bacteria are increasingly resistant to today’s antibiotics. Professor Gilles van Wezel seeks new forms of antibiotics in good bacteria that live in the soil.

The oldest university in the Netherlands has produced many well-known scientists. Some of them are known to the wider public; others are perhaps less well known, but their achievements are no less impressive.

PhD defence

PhD defence

Vast, often populated, areas in dryland ecosystems face the dangers of desertification.

Mathematician Robbin Bastiaansen, physicist Irene Battisti, pharmacist Fouzia Lghoul-Oulad Saïd and physics and astronomy student Maite Boden are the winners of the annual prizes of the Faculty of Science. Boden was honoured as the first Young Star, a new prize for the best bachelor’s student of the…

More than 3,500 enthusiastic Leiden first-years, 80% of them coming to Leiden University, gathered on Monday morning 13 August at the Lammermarkt for the start of the EL CID. Music booming, the groups gathered around their mentors in two shifts, at 9.30 and 11.30.

Rottgering

On Tuesday 6 September, the faculty year 2022-2023 got off to a great start with Leiden Law Op 1, our yearly talkshow live from the Kamerlingh Onnes Gebouw. Together with the Faculty Board, academic staff and students, we looked ahead to the upcoming academic year.

In the past decade many academic journals have started to require that researchers provide evidence of ethical review when submitting papers, for example when working with human participants or human remains.. In order to support researchers to ensure their projects are able to meet these expectations,…

An international research team is to search for invisible life in the Galápagos Islands. The diversity of bacteria and other microscopic organisms may not be evident to the naked eye, but it is essential to nature. To the islands' giant daisies, for instance: unique endemic plants that are currently…

The Horizon 2020 project ImageInLife has started on 1 January, followed by a kick-off meeting at the coordinating University of Montpellier at the end this month. This Marie Skłodowska-Curie training network brings together European groups that work on the imaging of vertebrates and offers fourteen…

Ecotox is a stimulating top-facility that provides an integrative research environment around the topic of ecotoxicological testing and experimental research. Research focus: Dose-response modelling Mode-of-actions and mechanism-of-actions Test method development, in view of targets in AOPs (adverse…

Publication of Johann Natterer's (1787-1843) word lists of Amazonian languages.

The Advisory Board of the IBL consists of five eminent scientists with specialist expertise in complementary disciplines. They all have prominent positions for the field of Biology in the Netherlands outside our own institute.

This thesis focuses on amyloid proteins, a class of proteins that convert into amyloid fibrils.

Political scientists Tom Louwerse, Simon Otjes & Cynthia van Vonno introduce the Dutch Parliamentary Behaviour Dataset, a record of parliamentary (voting) behaviour in the Dutch Tweede Kamer (Second Chamber, House of Representatives) since 1945.

Promotores: Prof.dr. F.P. Israel, Prof.dr. P.P. van der Werf

This thesis is an experimental study of the UV irradiation of the interstellar ice analogues, relevant for the different stages of the star and planet formation sequence.

Anchoring Cultural Formation in the First Millennium BCE

The thesis explores how interstellar chemistry evolves as a function of time and changing physical architectures during the formation of stars.

In this thesis, we aimed to better understand the underlying mechanisms involved in TNBC progression and metastasis formation and discover new targets to reduce breast cancer related deaths.

This book analyses the emergence of modern parties in nineteenth-century Europe and explores their connection with the slowly developing institution of democracy.

I have studied the hot, diffuse gas around and between galaxies. Specifically, I have used the EAGLE numerical simulations of galaxy formation to predict the properties of this gas, and I have used those properties to predict specific observables: soft X-ray absorption and emission lines.