In the Master’s programme in Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences of Leiden University you are trained for a scientific career in drug research and development.

In vitro disease models play a fundamental role in drug research. They enable the systemic identification and validation of disease mechanisms and the discovery of possible drug targets. However, more than often, drug candidates that are identified in vitro fail in the later clinical stages of drug…

Less than 1 in 10 drug candidates that enter phase 1 clinical trials actually gets approved for human use.

The Pharmacy research group focusses on the development of predictive models to improve clinical drug efficacy and safety. We work on clinical problems that require further mechanistic understanding and strive for ultimate benefit to patients.

Laura Heitman of the Leiden Academic Center for Drug Research (LACDR) has been nominated for the Prix Galien Research Award. This important pharmaceutical prize honors young, prominent researchers whose scientific research is of great importance for fundamental or clinical drug research.

Molecular Physiology is a research group at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry dedicated to the design, synthesis and application of chemical tools to study important biological and biomedical questions. The group is headed by Prof. Dr. Mario van der Stelt and includes the research lines of Assistant…

We aim to gain a better understanding of the natural disease progression of ALS in order to improve clinical trial design and analysis and to support drug discovery and clinical development of new drugs.

In this thesis, the discovery and optimization is described of chemical tools to study the N-acylethanolamine (NAE) biosynthetic pathway.

The clinical potential of applying synthetic lethality to cancer treatment is famously demonstrated by the BRCA1/PARP1 paradigm: a tumor specific defect in BRCA1 – a component of the DNA double-strand break (DSB) repair pathway homologous recombination (HR) – results in a remarkable sensitivity to PARP1…

The need for novel drugs as well as innovations in their development and application is as urgent as ever. Below we present our vision , mission, and our key research areas.

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…

The aim of this project is to explore the use of statistical interaction models to quantify cross-omics and omics-drug interactions in large-scale clinical and experimental datasets

The Chemical Probe Facility is part of the Leiden Early Drug Discovery & Development (LED3) center. Activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) is one of the pillars of chemical biology. ABPP determines the activity of entire protein families in living cells and tissues under physiological conditions, such…

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…

The mission in this division, headed by Laura Heitman, is to design and synthesize novel and better ligands for drug targets. Drug discovery is a lengthy but inspiring adventure. It is often an interplay between academic institutes and pharmaceutical industry, in which scientists at university develop…

In neonates and infants, body size, enzyme pathways, and expression and function of receptors and (target) proteins are still developing.

Art of Captivity / Arte del Cautiverio tells a compelling story about Central America's drug war through a series of rich photographs. The book, which is entirely bilingual in English and Spanish, focuses on Guatemala, which has become the primary point of transit for cocaine produced in the Andes and…

The Division of Systems Pharmacology and Pharmacy (SPP) aims to develop precision medicine approaches to characterize and predict variation in treatment response and enhance translational drug development strategies.

Traditional drug discovery approaches have been hampered by (in vitro) cell-culture models that poorly represent the situation in the human body.

Adenosine is an endogenous ligand which exerts its action by activating adenosine receptors (ARs), while its circulating levels are controlled via a variety of mechanism and proteins, amongst others the equilibrative nucleoside transporters (ENTs).

Are you looking for a research project?

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.

In this project, we aim to develop mathematical models to mechanistically and quantitatively predict the dynamics of cellular stress pathway activation and its relation with toxic effects when cells are exposed to various toxicants.

The Dick Stufkens Prize 2017 for the best PhD thesis of the Holland Research School of Molecular Chemistry (HRSMC) is awarded to Dr Sven Askes. In his thesis

The Repository from the Drug Disease Model Resources (DDMoRe) consortium provides a home to a collection of computational models of disease and drug action that have been used in pharmaceutical and/or academic research. This publically available open-access resource will make it easier for researchers…

The discovery of new medicines is a tedious and lengthy process. On average, over 10,000 molecules need to be studied for one to become a drug and reach the patient. Part of that process are the very costly clinical trials in humans, and candidate drugs often fail due to side effects or lack of efficacy.…

The master’s programme of Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences at Leiden University examines the research area of bio-pharmaceutical sciences and drug research. It offers seven specialisations ranging from BioTherapeutics to Industrial Pharmacy.

A new technique using fluorescent imaging to track the actions of enzymes might aid drug design for new anti-cancer, inflammation and kidney disease treatments. Researchers at the University of York and Leiden University have published these findings in Nature Chemical Biology.

The Novel chemical modalities research group is headed by Assistant Professor Sebastian Pomplun. Sebastian started at the division of Medicinal Chemistry within the LACDR in September 2021. His lab develops technologies for the discovery of novel chemical modalities that can address challenging drug…

Knowledge that benefits society is the domain of the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA). FGGA provides high-quality interdisciplinary education on and research into social and governance issues such as terrorism, organisation of public administration, climate change and economic crises.

Ewa Snaar-Jagalska, Shuning He and colleagues from IBL, LION and LACDR reported on a new zebrafish study to understand micrometastasis of human cancer cells. They discovered a novel role for neutrophils in assisting metastasis formation, which provides critical insights for anti-cancer therapies.

A combination of two potential drugs gives hope of a 'super blockage' of an over-active immune system, Leiden researchers report in Nature. The breakthrough came from the crystallisation of a membrane protein.

Promotor: Prof.dr. M. Danhof, Co-promotor: E.C.M. de Lange

The European Lead Factory has been created with the ultimate goal to develop lead drug candidates to address neglected diseases including bacterial infections, psychiatric disorders and oncology.

We aim to develop a drug-delivery method based on the production of biomolecules directly at the target site.

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…

Promotor: C.A.J. Knibbe, Co-promotores: H.P.A. van Dongen, B. van Ramshorst

Mechanobiology is a major area in biology, however, mechanics is currently a missing element in drug development pipelines. This has led to a high cost for the society. Mechanotoxicity of drugs often appears as a long-term side effect of drugs, and has led to removal of drugs from the market. Furthermore,…

An important hormone excreting gland in the human body is the pituitary

Pharmacist-clinical pharmacologist Robert Rissmann has been appointed Professor of Translational Dermatology. This extraordinary professorship has been created jointly by the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) and the Centre for Human Drug Research (CHDR) to strengthen their partnership…

Scientific Director of the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) Hubertus Irth: ‘We test substances and look for new concepts for treating disease.’

The LED3 hub, consisting of researchers from the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC), the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) and the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR), is very excited to organize the “LED3 Lectures”. This lecture series brings world-leading researchers in the field of…

About nine million people worldwide contract tuberculosis each year. Research into new treatment for this disease has received fresh stimulus with more efficient techniques and a new understanding of how the tuberculosis bacteria works.

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?

Professor Thomas Hankemeier and his international research team HYPERMARKER have received a 10m-euro grant from Horizon Europe and UK Research and Innovation.

In April, the X-omics initiative was granted 17 million euros from the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research. The subsidy is part of the National Roadmap for large-scale scientific infrastructure, intended to build or renew large-scale research facilities. What new insights will this investment…

Pharmacologist Rob van Wijk is the Highlighted Trainee Author in the October 2019 issue of the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. In his research, Van Wijk aims for a new paradigm by combining experimental work and computational data analysis.

The division of BioTherapeutics consists of the former divisions Biopharmaceutics and Drug Delivery Technology.

Clearance is the most important pharmacokinetic parameter for drug dose selection. Pharmacokinetic information is typically first available in the adult population, and in general only limited pharmacokinetic data are available in children when drugs enter into the market. It is therefore of the utmost…