Laura Heitman has been awarded a VIDI grant for her innovative drug research. Heitman strives to optimize a drug’s binding kinetics at its target in order to ultimately fight diseases effectively. She even pleads for a paradigm shift in drug discovery.

Plant biologist Pingtao Ding, assistant professor at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), has received a 2.4 million European grant from the European Research Council (ERC). This ERC Starting Grant for promising young researchers allows him to unravel the molecular mechanisms by which plants resist…

Historical figures such as Columbus have returned to the centre of public debate. Much remains to be discovered about his legacy and current impact on our society. A new study shows the ecological footprint that the arrival of Europeans left in the Caribbean islands.

In a survey held last year by the publication Elsevier, Leiden's Computer Science programme was voted by students as the best university programme of its kind in the Netherlands. And the Rotterdam Economics programme was voted the best in its field. Leiden University now offers a combined study based…

This summer postdoctoral researcher Mónica Varela from the Institute of Biology Leiden was awarded a Veni grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). Six questions about her project and hopes for the future.

The research group headed by Leiden chemist Marc Koper has discovered a catalyst that minimizes the production of chlorine gas during salt water electrolysis. The invention can enable the direct production of hydrogen from seawater. The article has been published in the Journal of the American Chemical…

Festival, Graduation ceremony

Festival, Graduation ceremony

Festival, Graduation Ceremony

'It gave our team a big boost to hear that our work was valuable,' says medical chemist Elmer Maurits about the moment they won the Venture Challenge. With their company Iprotics, they want to develop a drug that can better treat patients with autoimmune diseases and blood cancers. 25,000 euros of prize…

Lecture

How can mega sand nourishments, such as the Sand Motor, be designed and managed for optimal ecosystem services provision ?

Leiden archaeologist Professor Wil Roebroeks receives the 2021 Gutenberg Research Award of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU).

As the flagship journal of the National Academy of Sciences USA, PNAS publishes several special features each year highlighting topics that are expected to engage the interest of the journal’s broad readership. Archaeologist Wil Roebroeks was invited by the Editors of PNAS to contribute a paper on the…

At the end of 2020 researcher/lecturer Erwin Dijkstra joined the editorial team of academic journal Handicap & Recht (Disability & Law), published by Boom Juridisch. The December issue also includes an article he wrote.

Students from the Coornhert Lyceum from Haarlem visited the Babylab Leiden together with their teacher Roos Bannenberg. The 5-VWO students follow modules of 10 weeks for science orientation and they had difficulty imagining what research with babies looks like. The Babylab Leiden gave a solution.

The world is becoming clogged with plastic, with tiny plastic particles found everywhere, from the oceans’ depths to the mountain tops, soil, plants, animals and even inside us. The question is: what harm, if any, are they causing? In a new article on The Conversation, environmental scientists Meiru…

Professor of Predictive Pharmacology Elizabeth de Lange has received an Honorary Doctorate from the Faculty of Pharmacy of Uppsala University. She will be honoured during the Uppsala Winter Conferment Ceremony on 31 January 2020.

Prof. Hanneke Hulst has been appointed Scientific Director of the Institute of Psychology by the Board of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. She will start on 1 February 2024 for a period of 3 years, succeeding Andrea Evers and interim director Serge Rombouts.

The European Research council (ERC) was founded ten years ago today. The ERC is an important agency for research funding, including to Leiden University.

Prof. John Bintliff and Dr. Hans Kamermans have been awarded a 4-year EEC grant to develop Enhanced Reality reconstructions in Classical Archaeology.

Inhibiting specific protein production in the human body can serve as a crucial weapon in the fight against Alzheimer's, Eline van Maanen believes. PhD defence 23 November.

Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Associate Professor at eLaw, contributed to 'Cyber–Physical–Human Systems', a book exploring the latest developments in interactions between cyber–physical systems and humans.

The KNAW has rewarded 11 Leiden scientists for their commitment to science communication, by awarding them 10,000 euros each from the ‘Appreciated!’ fund.

The Lowlands pop festival is inviting scientists to make proposals for research at this year's festival (19 to 21 August).

Mathematician Stéphanie van der Pas and psychologist Sandy Overgaauw have been nominated for the New Scientist science talent competition, a prize for the most talented scientist in the Netherlands and Flanders.

An essential protein that regulates our heart beat turns out to be important for cancer cells as well. The discovery might open novel treatment strategies for fighting metastasis. Publication in Science Signaling on April 4th.

Just before Christmas, three talented scientists received good news: they are receiving a personal research grant from the Dutch Heart Foundation. Ilze Bot of the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research is one of those scientists. She will receive an Established Investigator grant of 650,000 euros.…

Scientists are split over whether the benefits some microdosers experience are a placebo effect or something more. Michiel van Elk has been interviewed by several international news to talk about his research and to discuss the effects of psychedelics.

Exploitation of smaller game is rarely documented before the latest phases of the Pleistocene, which is often taken to imply narrow diets for earlier hominins. In a study now published in Scientific Reports, a team of German and Dutch archaeologists present new data that contradict this view of Lower…

The Australian Research Council funded a truly ‘global archaeology’ project comparing the archaeologies of southwest Tasmania and southwest France during the last Ice Age.

The Metabolomics Facility of Leiden University is now officially in operation to prevent disease and to improve health throughout the human lifespan.

Professor Roberta D'Alessandro, from the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, has been appointed a member of the Global Young Academy (GYA) from 20 January 2014. The GYA, consisting of 155 members, provides a rallying point for outstanding young scientists from around the world.

On Friday June 25, eight students will present their Media Technology MSc graduation thesis work. In 20-25 minutes each graduate will present their research project, followed by 10-15 minutes public discussion. Everyone is invited to attend.

Leiden University professor of Science-Based Business Simcha Jong Kon Chin has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant.

We examine how soil inoculation influences aboveground organisms (i) directly, and indirectly via (ii) its effects on plant chemistry or volatile emission, or via (iii) mediating the effects of belowground pathogens on aboveground organisms via the shared plant.

Festival, Graduation Ceremony

Festival, Graduation Ceremony

Festival, Graduation ceremony

Festival, Graduation ceremony

Festival, Graduation ceremony

Festival, Graduation ceremony

Festival, Graduation Ceremony

Many of our staff and students have won an award, received a grant, obtained an academic fellowship for their quality or have been socially engaged due to their specific expertise. See below for an overview per year.

PhD defence

Lecture

The opportunity to explore a new, exciting research topic. That is how Lennart Schada von Borzyskowski describes his successful application for the NWO XS grant. It comprises 50,000 euros, which the researcher from the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) will spend on investigating a more sustainable…

Media in the Netherlands and abroad reported extensively about the drug research led by Leiden chemist Mario van der Stelt. In this research, Van der Stelt shows which unwanted side-effects a French drug candidate has.

According to the LUMC, patients experience 30% fewer serious side effects when medication doses are tailored to their DNA.

Do you recall all those drugs that were hastily proposed as potential treatments for COVID-19? In the event of a future pandemic, the goal is to offer an effective treatment more quickly and efficiently. To achieve this, a team led by Coen van Hasselt is developing a platform that can speed up the process…