Key publications of the Computational Drug Discovery group

Find out how to apply for Drug Discovery and Safety at Leiden University by following our step-by-step guide. NOTE: This specialisation will be integrated into the new specialisation ‘’Research in Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences’’ as of September 2025.

At Molecular Physiology we teach the following courses within the Leiden Institute of Chemistry's Chemistry and Life Science and Technology programmes.

Do you have questions about the Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences master’s programme or the specialisation Drug Discovery and Safety? Please contact us.

Prediction of human (CNS) target site concentrations in health and disease In the vision of Prof. de Lange we will only be able to predict human (central nervous system, CNS) target site concentrations and effects if we perform systematic, condition-dependent, integrative, and strictly quantitative…

How can rare and expensive materials be used more efficiently to produce cleaner and cheaper fuel? Under the guidance of Marc Koper, Professor of Catalysis and Surface Chemistry, international teams of scientists have published 3 articles in Nature Communications.

The AiChemist project (https://aichemist.eu) coordinated by Helmholtz Munich is an Innovative Doctoral Training Network funded through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA-DN) within the EU Horizon Research Framework, to the sum of €3 million. It brings together leading experts in AI, chemoinformatics…

The present thesis focuses on the pharmacological concept of drug-target interaction, which dates back to the beginning of modern pharmacology.

What do a novel anti-ageing ingredient for cosmetics and a new type of chicken feed have in common? They were both produced using a new solvent developed by Leiden biologists in 2011. The medium is neither solid nor liquid, and the industry is now starting to see it’s many possibilities.

Various companies in the plant biotech industry will test a recent Leiden discovery in their crops. The ‘Pol Theta’ technology is developed in Leiden and makes it possible to reduce undesired side effects during genome engineering of plants.

The goal of hit and lead optimization is to optimize suitable chemical starting points that can modulate a drug target. The methods and technologies used are similar to those in Hit Discovery, but once the compound has shown activity in an animal model, it moves from 'hit' to 'lead.'

Chemist Tobias Bauer discovered ways to improve drugs by encapsulating them. Packages with iron nanoparticles, for example, can stimulate immune cells. Bauer will receive his PhD on 9 June.

eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies, is well represented at a number of activities in Leiden this week concerning Technology and Society!

The research in the Biosyn group is focused on the design, synthesis and function of the four major types of biomolecules: nucleic acids, carbohydrates, peptides and lipids and hybrid structures thereof. These biomolecules and their derivatives are used in drug discovery and chemical biology, to develop…

After graduation you have a lot of opportunities: academics are highly sought after in Dutch secondary education or mbo teaching. You can also aim for a management position or work as a researcher within the field of Life Sciences.

Archaeologists from the National Museum of Antiquities (Leiden), the Museo Egizio (Turin, Italy) and Leiden University have found the grave of Panehsy, the 'steward of the temple of (the god) Amun', in Saqqara.

Promotor: M. Danhof, Co-promotores: J. Freijer, A. Yassen

RARE-NL, a new collaboration between university hospitals, hopes to find treatments for rare diseases. Professor Teun van Gelder is representing the LUMC in the initiative.

On Wednesday the 4th of September, Queen Máxima opened the renovated tropical greenhouse complex of the Leiden Hortus Botanicus. At the occasion Máxima met with IBL-PhD student Mahin Ghorbani from Iran and talked with her about her work on drug discovery from Iranian medicinal plants using zebrafish…

Supervisor: Gerard van Westen

Promotores: Prof.dr. J. A. Bouwstra, Prof.dr. W. Jiskoot

Endocannabinoids - the body's own marijuana - are promising departure points for drug research. Professor of Molecular Physiology Mario van der Stelt examines whether inhibiting their production can be a way to fight inflammatory brain disease and to combat obesity. Inaugural lecture 19 October.

International pharmaceuticals company Grünenthal is to open an innovation hub on the Leiden Bio Science Park. The hub will make it easier for scientists and drug developers to work together.

Come to the Night of Discoveries art and science festival on 16 September. Various researchers from the university are speaking at the festival.

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.P. van Wezel

Roeland Merks is the new director of the Lorentz Center as of 1 September. He has been appointed for a period of five years. In addition, Merks will remain associated with the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) and the Mathematical Institute (MI) as a professor. Merks succeeds Arjen Doelman, who has…

An overview of research projects at the Predictive Pharmacology group.

As of 1 November, Laura Heitman has been appointed full Professor of Molecular Pharmacology at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR). Heitman has been working on the understanding and improvement of drug-receptor interactions in early drug discovery. ‘My ultimate aim is to make medicines…

With the aid of physics and a minuscule magnet, researchers have discovered a new structure of telomeric DNA. Telomeres are sometimes seen as the key to living longer. They protect genes from damage but get a bit shorter each time a cell divides. If they become too short, the cell dies. The new discovery…

Can we find and commercialise new treatments for chronic disease that affect our ageing population? And how can we customise this research and development programme to the small but highly-developed Netherlands research economy?

In the summer of 2010, a special archaeological find resurfaced when plans to redevelop the Paardenmarkt, a parking lot in the historic city center of Alkmaar, began.

Pharmaceutical research should make more use of data science, says Gerard van Westen, postdoctoral fellow at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR). ‘If we want to have better drugs, we should start with data.’

Key publications of the Cancer Drug Target Discovery group

Our research programme collaborates with all kinds of partners to achieve our goal: bringing scientific discoveries to the clinic as soon as possible.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the phenomenon that pathogens become insensitive to the antibiotics that we use against them. A growing number of pathogens is becoming resistant, with methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) as the most famous example. But while the threat of AMR represents a slow-moving…

Filamentous Actinobacteria, such as Streptomyces, produce a plethora of chemically diverse bioactive metabolites that have found applications across medicine, agriculture and biotechnology.

For the first time, scientists have traced back a high-energy neutrino to its source in space. It was produced by a so-called blazar—a supermassive black hole. Researchers from neutrino detector IceCube report this in Science. ‘This is a milestone for neutrino science,’ says physicist Dorothea Samtleben…

Biologist Freek Vonk had already appeared in the Time Warp programme, where he was shown milking a snake for its venom, which he needed for his doctoral research. On Friday 18 September, he explained his fascination for snakes to Matthijs van Nieuwkerk in ‘De wereld draait door’, a Dutch news and entertainment…

Universiteit Leiden in cooperation with Naturalis, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and University Wageningen is foundig a center for biodiversity. They will receive 30 million euros from The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW).

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of the Faculty of Science with the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.

For her bachelor’s thesis, Molecular Science and Technology student Madouc Bergers synthesized her own molecule that can inhibit the breakdown of sugars. Although most students do not even manage to make one building block, Madouc made three. Partly because of this, she has been nominated for the Science…

A tantalizing concept that has emerged in our recent research is binding kinetics. An important parameter is residence time (RT), a direct reflection of how long a drug stays bound to its target. This parameter is of crucial importance, because drug action lasts only as long as the receptor-ligand complex…

Supervisor: Andrea Martella

How can zebrafish research help to understand and fight human cancer?

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a subtype of breast cancer characterized by limited treatment options and unfavorable clinical outcomes. Therefore, the research described in this thesis focused on the exploration of novel targeted therapies for TNBC.

This thesis represents a comprehensive investigation into the control of cancer stemness and metastatic initiation using a combination of advanced zebrafish xenograft models and in vitro assays.

Bioactive Molecules is one of the four research themes of the Institute of Biology Leiden.

The current projects of the Molecular Physiology group focus on proteins of the endocannabinoid system, kinases and antibacterial targets. MSc- and BSc-students can contact Jessica van Krimpen-Kraaijenoord to apply for research internships.