The Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC) is the basis for research and collaborations of the Leiden chemistry groups. Chemistry is the central science enabling a healthy future in a sustainable society. Chemistry researchers at Leiden University take a fundamental approach in finding tailored solutions…

Growth and development affect the metabolism of drugs administered to neonates, infants, and children.

Antibiotics are a class of medicine most people take for granted. But pathogenic bacteria are becoming more and more resistant to our antibiotics, and this poses a great challenge for future treatments. There is thus a great societal need to identify new molecules that can address new targets and be…

How can we implement the technique of pharmacological resting-state fMRI to improve the diagnosis of dementia?

New drugs for use as tuberculosis (TB) treatment are needed due to the constrains of classical antibiotics against TB and the rise of antibiotic-resistant strains, making TB a harder and harder disease to treat.

Designing and synthesizing high-affinity ligands for a given drug target have always been among the more important challenges in the drug discovery process.

Our research is aimed at a smoother and speedier transition from preclinical research to pharmacological interventions, and the delivery of drugs in the human body by use of small molecules and biologics.

Many students receive their first job offer during or right after their Business Studies internship. After graduating you can also aim for a career in Bio-Pharmaceutical research.

Lecture

A cancer pill, preferably without severe side effects, is something we’d all welcome. Is it a matter of time before such a pill is a reality? We put this question to three Leiden researchers and asked how they themselves are contributing to new cancer treatments.

Our educational programmes span the entire spectrum of pharmaceutical education, from training of the next generation drug researchers in the areas of drug design, drug action, and drug use to educating the pharmacists of the future.

Gert Oostindie, Emeritus Professor of Colonial and Postcolonial History, is this year’s Cleveringa Professor at Leiden University. He was appointed by the University on 4 October. In his inaugural lecture on 24 November, entitled Courage and Disregard, he will talk about (academic) freedom in relation…

Leiden University and Leiden University Medical Center have joined the Netherlands Centre for One Health (NCOH), further strengthening the academic network in which such problems as antimicrobial resistance are studied.

The fact that scientists are increasingly better able to access molecular cell and tissue data also brings with it a new challenge: how can scientists find the information they need for research among the vast amount of data available?

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.’

Embryonic stem cells have the remarkable ability to develop into any type of cell. On their way to become for example a liver or a heart cell, they must repeatedly decide between alternative developmental paths. How they make these decisions is largely unknown. An international team of biophysicists…

Medicines are becoming increasingly precise and innovative, but at the same time increasingly expensive. With their innovations, it is up to universities to increase competition, thus causing prices to drop. This is what newly appointed Professor of Biomolecular Analysis Hubertus Irth argues. His inaugural…

Lecture

On 26 November historian Jan Grabowski and sociologist Barbara Engelking will both give the Cleveringa Lecture. They wrote a book about the Holocaust in Poland and were taken to court for defamation.

The four thousand war victims buried at the Netherlands Field of Honour at Loenen include a number of Leiden students who were in the Resistance. The War Graves Foundation is looking for volunteers to take part in a special event to honour the deceased.

Conference, INVISIHIST Pre-Conference

With cancer, a person’s body cells grow uncontrollably. Putting together a detailed picture of how this comes about makes it possible to develop efficient therapies. Researchers at the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) and Leiden University are working together to gain a better understanding…

Debate

One of the holy grails of drug research is to be able to assess the safety of chemicals and pharmaceuticals without using laboratory animals. Researchers from Leiden University, among others, now receive a grant from the National Science Agenda to pursue that goal.

Methods of treatment for chronic illnesses are limited. Doctors and researchers at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and Leiden University are working on new therapies as an alternative for organ transplants. The goal is to cure the illnesses by restoring organs to their original function. Stem…

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…

Lecture, Tuesday Talks: Science Insights

The annual commemoration of the nation’s war dead on Dam Square and at Waalsdorpervlakte, the Dutch apologies for historical slavery and the Cleveringa Lecture itself: our relationship with history is often ritualistic, Cleveringa Professor Frank van Vree will say in his inaugural lecture on 27 Nove…

Lecture

In this thesis, we used genetically engineered mouse models to identify genes and pathways that are involved in ILC formation and in the development of resistance to FGFR-targeted therapy.

Identifying the gaps in the legal framework for EU activities in the maritime security domain, and specifically in the areas of combating piracy, human smuggling or trafficking and drug trafficking.

Combining different disciplines, researchers work together to formulate innovative solutions to societal problems.

Key publications of the Quantitative Clinical Pharmacology group

Treatment with special stem cells seems to be a good option for suppressing the immune system in organ transplants. Researchers are trying to learn from processes that take place in the human body during pregnancy.

Researchers at LED3 are working together with biopharmaceutical company Galapagos to develop software for use in early drug discovery (funded by NWO). This software is able to design molecules with several simultaneously optimized characteristics and will also take prediction reliability into consideration…

Target selectivity is an important aspect of any drug molecule, and certainly a parameter to be optimized. That is not trivial for a number of reasons. First of all hundreds of drug targets (receptors, enzymes, ion channels) exist, and no single lab in the world has assays for all of them.

The project 'Policing the high seas: maritime law-enforcement in a multi-actor environment' aims to identify the gaps in the legal framework for EU activities in the maritime security domain, and specifically in the areas of combating piracy, human smuggling or trafficking and drug trafficking.

Key publications of the Predictive Pharmacology group.

The LACDR represents the core of bio-pharmaceutical research at Leiden University, and we interact closely with our partners:

Key publications of the Quantitative Pharmacology group

Event

The Russian military assault on Ukraine has profoundly shocked knowledge institutions in the Netherlands, as represented by Universities of the Netherlands, the Netherlands Association of Universities of Applied Sciences, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Dutch Research Council,…

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the deadliest common cancer, with only 8% of patients surviving for five years. One reason for this poor outcome is that current chemotherapy treatments are highly toxic, often leaving patients too sick to receive treatment or forcing doctors to lower the dose…

Cancer is the leading cause of death in the Netherlands, and, with over 100 different types of cancer, it’s not a simple disease. Today, skin, breast, lung, prostate and colon cancer are the most diagnosed forms. Therefore, the discovery and development of new drugs has the ability to significantly…