An international consortium of research groups is aiming to develop novel antibiotics against the tuberculosis bacteria and two other deadly bacteria. The European Union has awarded a total of 18 million euros to the RespiriTB and RespiriNTM projects. Researchers from the Leiden University Medical Centre…

Using photosynthesis to generate energy, or using enzymes to effectively produce biofuel; Leiden chemists Huub de Groot en Hermen Overkleeft have both obtained an NWO TOP funding for their pioneering research. With the money they can take on new PhD students.

PhD candidate Jiangnan Ding explores how you can design a thick slab of rubber in a way that it might act as a mechanical computer bit. This so-called mechanical metamaterial is pushed in a specific way to change its shape. ‘With a very simple material, we might be able to do simple calculations in…

Sander van Kasteren (Professor of Molecular Immunology) makes the invisible visible. He will explain more in his inaugural lecture.

Recently, our respected and talented former colleague Bente Hilde Bakker passed away after a long and brave fight with illness. She received her mathematical training at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and also obtained her PhD there under the supervision of Jan Bouwe van den Berg and Robert van…

Leiden's iGEM team has won high honours at the Grand Jamboree in Paris. The biology students came second in the Overgraduate category with their project PHAse Out. They also took home awards for Best Biomanufacturing Project, Best Wiki and Best Entrepreneurship as well as a Gold Medal. To top it all…

Leiden biologists have shown that a gene present in plants, animals and yeasts does play an important role in plants, although for years the gene was considered unimportant. It turns out the gene plays a crucial role in the development of vascular tissue in plants. Publication in Nature Plants on 11…

Professor of Human Genetics Willeke van Roon will give her inaugural lecture on Monday 28 March entitled: ‘Translational research, where small parts make the bigger picture.’ She will emphasise how university medical centres should take responsibility for finding treatments for very rare diseases.

Collaborating in drug discovery and health research was the goal of a visit to the Leiden Bio Science Park on 14 May by a Swedish delegation including His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustav of Sweden. The delegation visited Leiden University’s Faculty of Science.

Leiden researcher Dr Ben Zonneveld has determined the size of the genome - the amount of DNA per nucleus - of wild tulips. His conclusion is that there are more than 87 wild species. Various possibly new species have been discovered.

The guardian of our genome, the protein MutS, scans the DNA for spelling errors and makes sure they are corrected. An essential process for our health. Researchers at Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) have discovered precisely how this protein works by making MutS visible with cryo-electron microscopy.…

The group structure of Jihadist networks changes rapidly, which makes it difficult to monitor them. This is the finding of research by criminologist Jasper de Bie. PhD defence 14 April.

Neuroscientist Anne Urai has been awarded a Veni subsidy to further develop her ideas over the coming four years on how the brain makes choices. Why did she receive the award? Urai answers five questions about her Veni grant for young researchers.

Yuvraj Birdja converted CO2 to formic acid to store energy in a sustainable way, with different catalysts. With this new knowledge, scientists are a step closer in industrially converting CO2 to chemicals and fuels. This can help reduce CO2 emission and the greenhouse effect.

Ariane Briegel has been appointed Professor in the fìeld of Ultrastructural Biology within the Faculty of Science at the Institute of Biology from the 1st of December 2015. Her expertise is in using electron cryotomography to study how microbes sense and respond to their environment.

The opportunistic bacterium Burkholderia cenocepacia is feared by cystic fibrosis patients and is emerging in hospital-acquired infections. An international study sheds new light on the infection mechanism of this opportunistic pathogen that may have large implications for treatment strategies.

The receptor nomenclature committee of IUPHAR, the International Union of Pharmacology, has several subgroups. Among these are a few that our division is involved in, those for adenosine, nicotinic acid, and GnRH receptors.

An overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2020, as well as special appointments at Leiden University and other institutions.

Phage therapy is a novel yet unmatured therapeutic approach in the face of the crisis of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Dr. Tingjie Guo received a grant from the Elise Mathilde Fund and the LUF to develop innovative phage-antibiotic combination treatment strategy for combating AMR.

Former PhD student Gerard van Westen was granted the C.J. Kok Award also known as “Discoverer of the Year”. A festive ceremony took place at the Faculty’s New Year’s reception on January 7, 2014.

Laura Groen, MSc student at LACDR’s division of medicinal chemistry, has been elected to attend the Science and Technology Leadership Assocation (STeLA) forum.

We exploit secondary metabolites of plant to develop pharmaceutical compounds and we genetically modify plant genomes to improve crops.

CML-researcher Rene Kleijn has spoken about metals scarcity in relation to the energy transition in a new Dutch popular scientific TV show called

As of May 2015, Prof. dr. Ad Ijzerman has been appointed as Secretary of The Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities.

For the third consecutive year, LACDR organized the international symposium on topology, Circuit Topology III, on November 29, 2023. The event aimed to bring together experts from diverse fields, including mathematics, computer science, physics, chemistry, and biomedical sciences, to discuss cutting-edge…

Natalia Ortiz, a current PhD student in our department, was awarded the KNMP Student Prize during the last autumn Congress 2014 of the Royal Dutch Pharmacists Association (Koninklijke Nederlandse Maatschappij ter bevordering der Pharmacie, KNMP), held in Utrecht at the beginning of October.

On Friday the 29th of October, LACDR presented highlights of its research and teaching program during an online Lunchtime Talk session at the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

On March 27th, 2015 the biannual Dutch Medicinal Chemistry Prize for the best Dutch Ph.D. thesis in the field was awarded to Dr. Dong Guo, a current postdoc researcher in our lab, by the Section of Medicinal Chemistry of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society.

Former PhD student Annelien Zweemer was granted the C.J. Kok Award 2014, also known as “Discoverer of the Year”. A festive ceremony took place at the Faculty’s New Year’s reception on January 6, 2015.

What do Master Card, the UN High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) and Leiden University have in common? They all work on new sets of guidelines for responsible data use.

On the 21st of September, seven students of SBB visited OcellO at the Biopartner 2.

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) selects prominent researchers as members based on their scientific achievements. On September 17th, the KNAW will install 21 new members, including Leiden physicist Michel Orrit.

The editors of Biophysical Journal have selected a publication from Daniela Kraft’s group as the Paper of the Year 2017. The award recognizes an outstanding contribution by a young investigator.

Laura Heitman is awarded the 2018 EFMC runner-up prize for a Young Medicinal Chemist in Academia

Laura Heitman won the prize for Young Medicinal Chemist in Academia and the 2017 RSC MedChemComm prize.

Marjolein Soethoudt was awarded the Unilever Research Prize 2013 for the University of Leiden. The prize was bestowed upon her because of her thesis about her 9-months Master’s internship that she performed in the department from September 2011 until July 2012, in combination with her other study re…

Annelot van Esbroeck-Weevers, PhD student at the Molecular Physiology research group at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry, headed by Dr. Mario van der Stelt, has been awarded the Best Oral Communication Prize at the 8th European Workshop on Cannabinoid Research, held from 31 August to 2 September 2017…

In 2023, many of our students and staff won great prizes and secured important research grants.

Science

For every period, it is a challenge to unearth the details of political trafficking; yet the effort needs to include all relevant persons, groups, and institutions – not only those wielding formal responsibilities. We hope to reinvigorate this effort by inviting specialists to present their research…

On 15 May, the ambassadors of 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries were shown the highlights of research at Leiden University Faculty of Science. Furthermore, Prince Carlos de Bourbon de Parme awarded prizes to two young academics who conduct research in Latin America.

Memory loss and confusion are signs of Alzheimer’s disease. Physicists Serge Rombouts and Martina Huber have developed new methods to help medical science get to the bottom of this insidious disease.

Marta Fiocco, professor in the Mathematical Institute, has received a grant for analysing data on chemotherapy in children suffering from leukaemia. The work involves developing and applying new statistical methods that will help determining the optimal dose of chemotherapy.

Anthe Janssen, a PhD student in the Molecular Physiology research group of Prof. Mario van der Stelt, has been awarded the Public's Choice Prize for Best Oral Presentation during the Young Medicinal Chemist Symposium '18 in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

A team of surgeons at Leiden University Medical Center and the Centre for Human Drug Research have removed a lung tumour that they pinpointed using fluorescence. This is the first time that this technique has been used in Europe in a patient with a lung tumour.

Last Monday April 18, Bram Koster (professor at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), professor at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC)) and Ariane Briegel (professor at the IBL) gave a presentation to the mayor of Leiden, Henri Lenferink. The presentation took place at NeCEN, the open access…

Fourteen Leiden University scientists appear on the 2018 Highly Cited Researchers list, which was announced on 28 November by Clarivate Analytics.

Professor of Ultrastructural Biology Ariane Briegel has received a grant in the NWO Open Competition Domain Science in the XS category. This grant emphatically encourages curiosity-driven and bold research with a maximum of 50,000 euros.

Marie Depuydt has won the Van Wersch Springboard Prize. She was awarded the prize on 28 November during the annual Fall symposium. There were seven nominees in total, but the selection committee unanimously chose Depuydt as the winner.