LED3 is the combined effort of three excellent institutes of Leiden University. Through joined hands, we are able to give rise to a more effective early drug discovery pipeline. Let us briefly introduce the three institutes.

The research master's specialisation Clinical and Health Psychology consists of five main parts: the general courses, the specialisation-specific courses, the elective courses, a research internship and a thesis.

How do individuals make decisions? What determines the quality of group decisions? When and why do people cooperate with others? How does intergroup competition evolve?

Promotores: Prof.dr. A.G.G.M. Tielens & Prof.dr. L. Kaper (UvA)

The Role and Effectiveness of the G20. In this article, published in The Changing Global Order part of the United Nations University Series on Regionalism book series, author Jaroslaw Kantorowicz discusses the evolution of the G20.

The aim of the RAISE study is to investigate how resilient people respond to stress. Specifically, we will study how key biological systems (HPA-axis, immune system) interact with the brain and social environment in order to facilitate resilient functioning after childhood adversities.

Streptomyces are bacteria abundant in soil that participate in diverse and complex interactions. These bacteria are the main producers of the antibiotics we currently use in the clinic.

On 21 September 2022 H. Hu successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Promotor: W. Jiskoot, Co-promotor: H.A. Every

Ruixuan Chen defended his theses on 16 October 2018.

This dissertation set out to provide both an integrated framework for the practices of teacher peer feedback and an in-depth understanding of teacher peer feedback in the Chinese vocational education context.

Co-ordination Action for Innovation in Life-Cycle Analysis for Sustainability: deepening, broadening and leaping forward the LCA methodology.

Streptomyces are filamentous bacteria that produce more than two-thirds of known antibiotics.

Glycoconjugate vaccines are composed of microbial poly- or oligosaccharides covalently linked to a carrier protein.

Jelena Vićić and Richard Harknett offer an analytical construct to better understand the mechanism by which cyber-enabled influence operations work

Surface plasmons (SPs) are surface waves at the interface between a dielectric and a good metal, and are formed by the interaction between light and the free electrons at the metal-dielectric interface. They provide strong field confinement for optical fields, opening new possibilities for enhanced…

The spindle-assembly checkpoint (SAC) is a safety mechanism which secures accurate chromosome segregation during mitosis.

During adolescence, mood disorder onset peaks. Mood variability is associated with negative mental health outcomes, so understanding biological factors that might be associated with mood variability, such as sleep and structural brain development, could elucidate the mechanisms underlying mood and anxiety…

Heart failure is a major health care problem with high mortality.

Because of their large surface area and immunological competence, mucosal tissues are attractive administration and target sites for vaccination.

How the global distribution of vegetation stands dominated by arbuscular and ectomycorrhizal plants relate to principle aspects of belowground carbon accumulation processes?

List of Support Departments at LION and the Faculty of Science

Does Artifical Light at Night (ALAN) disrupt seasonal physiological and behavioral patterns in migrating freshwater fish?

Brain development in children with an extra X chromosome as compared to children with autism: evidence from MRI

The Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) is an internationally oriented institute for research and education in biology. We are part of the Faculty of Science at Leiden University.

Inflammatory skin diseases such as psoriasis and atopic dermatitis can severely impact both the physical and social aspect of a patient’s life. Aberrant inflammatory responses are thought to be a major causative factor in these disorders, but an abundance of different factors contribute to the development…

Detecting nanoscopic objects plays an important role in nanoscience in particular, in the rapidly growing field of nanobiology. The forebear to modern super-resolution microscopy for single molecule investigation, is fluorescence microscopy.

The research of the unit is aimed at the development of models to explain and describe the influences in social systems. Social influences are studied in three ways: from the perspective of group dynamics, from an individual-cognitive perspective, and from an economic and consumer psychological pers…

In this thesis, the role of plant-mediated soil legacy effects in shaping aboveground plant-insect interactions was investigated.

Understanding individual differences in self-regulation in boys with ODD/CD on the level of brain, cognition and behavior

Joanna Krenz defended her thesis on 15 May 2018.

This thesis explores different avenues to develop insurmountable antagonists for CC Chemokine Receptors, such as CCR1, CCR2 and CCR5.

Inactivating mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes predispose to several types of cancer.

Main challenges in skin vaccination are overcoming the stratum corneum (SC) barrier and targeting the antigen presenting cells (APC) in the epidermis and the dermis.

On 19 May 2020, Xuechan Ma defended her thesis 'Moving towards Coexistence and Cooperation: The Spratly Islands and International Law'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. N.J. Schrijver.

This thesis investigated the extent to which participation of school students in decision-making processes can be achieved, including through participatory action research (PAR) in teacher education.

Polymyxins are clinically used antibiotics, discovered in mid-20th century. Once abandoned due to excessive nephrotoxicity, they are now used increasingly to address infections caused by multi-drug resistant Gram-negative bacteria.In this thesis, we describe the development and synthesis of analogues…

Research projects

Promotor: W. Jiskoot, Co-promotor: A. Hawe

Promotor: J. Zaanen, Co-Promotor: V. Juricic

Violence during war often involves upswings and downturns that have, to date, been insufficiently explained. Why does violence at a particular point in time increase in intensity and why do actors in war decrease the level of violence at other points? Duyvesteyn discusses the potential explanatory variables…

Mapping the neural mechanisms underlying social motivations of adolescents and adults

Anthropogenic noise negatively affects wildlife in a wide range of taxonomic groups.

Promotores: Prof.dr. E.F. van Dishoeck, Prof.dr. C.P. Dullemond

Marc Koper’s research focuses on electrocatalysis and electrochemical surface science for sustainable energy and chemistry. Reactions of interest are the redox reactions of the oxygen/hydrogen cycle (water oxidation, hydrogen evolution), the carbon cycle (reduction of carbon dioxide, oxidation of small…

This thesis describes the design and synthesis of fragments of various cell wall carbohydrates of the Streptococcus species, including the branched Group B-specific antigen (GBC) of Group B Streptococcus, glycerol phosphate (GroP) modified group A carbohydrate (GAC), and the O-acetylated type 1 capsular…

Chemical-induced organ toxicity is a major concern in the development and use of chemicals, including drugs, pesticides, industrial chemicals and cosmetics. In the last decades, the onset and progression of chemical-induced organ toxicity has been linked amongst others to perturbation of mitochondri…

This dissertation is concerned with the development of grammar. Starting from a usage-based perspective, which holds that children use domain-general learning mechanisms to acquire the grammatical patterns of their mother tongue, Beekhuizen shows how to operationalize various concepts from this tradition…

The probability for dissociation of molecules on metal surfaces, which often controls the rate of industrially important catalytic processes, can depend strongly on how energy is partitioned in the incident molecule. There are many example systems where the addition of vibrational energy promotes reaction…

To increase clinical success rate of drugs, a better understanding of drug action mechanism and disease dynamics is required. Metabolomics, which studies small molecules involved in biochemical processes in organisms, has shown to be a useful tool for this better understanding.