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Jasper Knoester started on 1 January as our new dean. How is he finding it, what kinds of things is he doing and what does his day look like? In every newsletter Jasper gives us a peek into his life as dean.

Understanding the proces of electrochemical reactions is essential to improve the technology for the energy transition. Fuel cell cars, for example use hydrogen produced from the electrolysis of water. Mariana Monteiro did fundamental research on the process and won two prizes with her thesis.

Acute stress seems to have a surprisingly positive effect on our health. Researcher Erin Faught received an NWO veni grant to find out why that is and how we can use that knowledge to our advantage. For her lab research, she uses a remarkable small animal to learn more about our own stress levels.

Swarms of drones, pedestrians or the cells in your body. Those are all examples of active matter: materials whose building blocks can move autonomously. That’s what Luca Giomi studies. Giomi has been appointed Professor of theoretical physics in the area of soft matter and biological physics at the…

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.

The challenge is considerable, but so is the satisfaction when it succeeds: creating complex sugar molecules that play a role in biology.

In May 2021, Professor Bart Custers, Dr Mark Leiser and Dr Eduard Fosch Villaronga (all affiliated to eLaw, the Center for Law and Digital Technologies of Leiden University) will teach a course on Law and Technology at Haifa University, Israel.

Education

On 28 August 2024, Lieke Beekers won the Young Economist Award 2024.

Genes predict whether you have a propensity for an illness but environmental factors often have the last word: nutrition, air pollution, lifestyle, stress. The exposome as both culprit and chance. Large-scale research is being carried out into this at Leiden. Thomas Hankemeier, Professor of Analytical…

Hundreds of thousands of Dutch people suffer from pain caused by knee osteoarthritis and the number is rising fast. Prof. Jaap Harlaar specialises in clinical biomechanics. His research is helping improve osteoarthritis treatment. Harlaar has been appointed Medical Delta Professor and now holds posts…

Skåne University Hospital, Lund University and Leiden University Medical Center will work together to expand their research, teaching and development relating to Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products. That is the essence of a Memorandum of Understanding signed at SciLifeLab near Stockholm on Wednesday…

On 28 September the famous chemists Carolyn Bertozzi visited Leiden University to speak at the LED3 seminar. Just one week later, she was announced winner the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Leiden chemists Sebastian Pomplun and Hermen Overkleeft are fan: ‘We are extremely honoured to have hosted this…

An impressive 12 researchers from Leiden University have been awarded an 800,000-euro grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This will enable them to develop their own line of research over the next five years.

Nausea, neurologic pain and hair loss: some of the severe side effects of chemotherapy. Not necessary, biochemist Liyan Zhang showed. Together with Leiden biologists and others, she achieved great results with a drug that is only active in combination with light. Zhang will defend her PhD on 4 July.

A single tiny molecule that can destroy flu, corona, HIV and Zika viruses? Yes, it really does exist. Biophysicist Niek van Hilten, who will receive his doctorate on 14 September, contributed to this discovery.

Prof. Marcel Reinders is a data science specialist at Delft University of technology. Using smart algorithms, he searches for links in complex data. For example, he studies patterns in DNA that lead to aberrant cell behaviour. This knowledge will help detect serious diseases such as Alzheimer's and…

Already during their bachelor’s programme, students in Pharmaceutical Sciences are presented with challenging projects. One of these is the Bachelor Research Assignment (BOO in Dutch), which is often their first real experience with scientific research. This means a lot of responsibility and failures,…

How can we view societal challenges from a different perspective? At the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF), Robert Zwijnenberg, Emeritus Professor of Art and Science Interactions, will call for more collaboration between artists and scientists.

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded Nathaniel Martin a Proof of Concept (PoC) grant. With it, his group aims to make a dangerous but potent antibiotic less toxic. He receives €150.000.

Developing a better treatment for patients with head and neck cancer, that is what Binanox, The 2022 iGEM Leiden team, want to achieve. They hope to raise at least 10,000 euros for this cause. Support their crowdfunding campaign today.

PhD candidate Sibel Bahtiri is one of the new Faces of Science. In videos and blogs, she will show what life is like as a young researcher.

Microscopic swimmers such as bacteria do not always swim alone. There are advantages to exchanging information and cooperating. Stefania Ketzetzi and colleagues now show in Nature Communications that human-made microswimmers, too, can cooperate.

Biotechnological developments are moving fast. From genetically modified plant varieties we are now moving to cultured meat. These developments require moral interpretation - and they get it in the form of art. Lotte Pet wrote a dissertation about it.

This week, we are hosting the ULLA workshop 2023. We are proud partner of the ULLA. It is the European University Consortium for Pharmaceutical Sciences in which LACDR participates for already 30 years.

Klara Beslmüller

During the LACDR Fall Symposium, Scott Engels received the Suzanne Hovinga Award for the ‘best master thesis’. Scott performed his RP1 research under the supervision of Dr. Amanda Foks and Virginia Smit in the Aging and Immunity group at the division of BioTherapeutics.

Leiden University has secured an impressive 12 European exchange grants. This is good news for students, lecturers and researchers from home and abroad.

Leiden researchers Arko Ghosh and Enea Ceolini analysed the usage data of hundreds of mobile phones and discovered that our body has rhythms ranging between 7 and 52 days. These cycles influence how we behave. Their research resulted in an article in npj Digital Medicine journal, a Nature Portfolio…

As an employee, the Faculty of Law at Leiden University also allows you to go on an exchange. Read here how Esther Kentin experienced this and where to find more information.

Psychology Lab on Wheels makes science accessible for everyone. On Monday 24 June, we will be back with our mobile lab at the Old Observatory near the Singelpark in Leiden. Join our research to learn to better recognise emotions with a Serious game and read more about participant Maxime and game developer…

Professor Nira Wickramasinghe will research forgotten lineages with an NWO Open Competition grant, in particular the afterlife of Dutch slavery in the Indian Ocean World.

Een internationaal consortium onder leiding van Olaf van Vliet heeft een Horizon Europe subsidie van 3,4 miljoen euro gewonnen. In het onderzoek staat centraal hoe wereldwijde sociale veranderingen zoals migratie, digitalisering en de klimaattransitie de arbeidsmarkt beïnvloeden en wat daar de gevolgen…

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has rewarded four projects in which Leiden researchers are bringing science and society closer together. What are these projects?

It’s November, so from now on we will be using Shuttel to log our travel and homeworking days. Esther van Opstal (HR Director) and Karin van den Elzen (Finance Director) were closely involved in developing our new mobility policy and the updated travel allowance. They explain how they use Shuttel and…

Organisation

Despite the covid-19 pandemic, the 2019-2022 Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project between Leiden Law School and the University of Tirana was successfully finalized.

Security

The issue of how to deal with a development such as digitalisation in the public domain raises difficult questions for the municipality: who is responsible and when do you intervene?

Education

Research

Research

Research

The Rectors of the eight European EUniWell universities met in July in Leiden. During the meeting they discussed the future of this alliance that focuses on joint research and education in the area of health.

Zuzana Vikarská joined the Europa Institute in January 2021 as a visiting researcher within the re:constitution fellowship - a new programme funded by Stiftung Mercator comprising 20 fellows who have their own project. The fellows meet regularly to discuss work in progress and engage in academic mobility…

We are excited to announce that Marie Schwed Shenker's research paper, co-authored with Dr Eduard Fosch-Villaronga (Associate Professor at eLaw) and Professor Bart Custers (Professor of Law and Data Science), has been accepted for presentation at the 16th International Conference on Social Robotics…

Education, Organisation, Research

Marlien van Mever delved into the analysis of tiny samples, cerebrospinal fluid from transgenic mouse models for example. She validated methods that can now be used to study brain diseases such as migraine and epilepsy. Van Mever will receive her PhD on 14 June.