In our lab, we investigate the physics and material properties of low-dimensional systems.

Science, Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL)

The "Van Marum Colloquia" are a collaborative lecture series between the LION and LIC institutes, focusing on fundamental and applied surface science.

Relevant publications of the CIGR participants.

The application procedure is broken down into three parts.

LUCL member prof. dr. Holger Gzella has been elected as member of the Academia Europaea (The Academy of Europe).

Daniela Kraft will be awarded the NWO Athena Prize 2019 in a ceremony at the CHAINS Chemistry Conference on 10 December. The prize recognizes excellent female chemists who carry out outstanding scientific research and act as role models for their fellow researchers. Kraft will receive the Athena Prize…

From 22 to 24 October, researchers of the MARBLES-project informed museum visitors about microbes: bacteria and fungi that live all around us. The event was organised around the Micro-day of Leiden, which is this year’s EU City of Science.

Emeritus Professor Ben Lugtenberg edited a book on “Principles of Plant-Microbe Interactions” together with Paul Hooykaas, Eddy van der Meijden and Jos Raaijmakers, all from the IBL.

Prof. Dr. Ir. Marin van Heel, Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Biology Leiden (NeCEN), is one of the winners of the “Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences 2017”. This annual award is presented to recognize contributions that have opened new fields of research or have advanced concepts in a particular…

Three Leiden researchers have been awarded a prestigious Vici grant, the Dutch Research Council (NWO) announced on Tuesday. Two of the researchers work at Leiden University and the third at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC).

Complex Structures Made Simple - Continuous Flow Production of Core Cross-Linked Polymeric Micelles for Paclitaxel Pro-Drug-Delivery

From 1 September, the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) will be offering a fully funded regular Master’s programme in Vitality and Ageing.

Maurijn van der Zee, evolutionary biologist at the IBL, received the National Zoology Award for his research on the evolutionary success of the insects. The award was handed out last Saturday, the 17th of December, by Professor Jan Kammenga, chairman of the Royal Dutch Zoological society.

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.

Researchers at the Universities of Amsterdam (Uva) and Leiden together with the Netherlands Cancer Institute and Oncode Institute have received a €10,6 million ERC Synergy Grant to develop innovative therapeutic approaches to target glioblastoma. This is a deadly primary brain tumour for which no curing…

How do you microscopically image zebrafish larvae? The new free online course ‘Imaging the Vertebrate embryo’ teaches you all about it. Leiden PhD candidates Salomé Muñoz Sánchez and Radoslaw Gora contributed to the course.

Rapid developments in DNA techniques allow researchers to find out more and more about human genetics. An international group of scientists has drawn up five ethical guidelines to ensure that this DNA research is better regulated. Leiden archaeologist Marie Soressi – one of the signatories - explains…

Four Leiden researchers have each been awarded a consolidator grant of up to 2 million euros by the European Research Council (ERC). They carry out research on a diverse range of subjects, from gender stereotyping in the field of science to making sugar molecules.

Even though it is generally known that Autism and ADHD are more common in men, and depression or anxiety disorders are more common among women, it is still not well understood if, how and when sex differences impact neurodiversity and mental health. To better understand this complex issue, 25 international…

The work done by SUMO proteins in the cells of our body is of vital importance. Molecular cell biologist Alfred Vertegaal has been studying these proteins for nine years, first with a Veni subsidy and then with a prestigious Vidi subsidy.

Medical psychologist Willeke Kitselaar developed a model that helps identify patients with persistent somatic symptoms earlier, based on an extensive large medical database. ‘I advise GPs to ask patients to fill in a questionnaire about both physical and mental symptoms at an earlier stage.’ PhD defence…

“Endophenotypes of Social Anxiety Disorder: Can we detect them and are they useful in clinical practice”

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.

Turning beer waste into a useful, sustainable product. That was the mission of students from Leiden at the international BISC-E event. The biology students challenged themselves and won third place in the Dutch finals of this competition. For this, they used the simple formula: Grain + fungus = coas…

All microscopic objects, from enzymes to paint particles, are jittering constantly, bombarded by solvent particles: this is called Brownian motion. How does this motion change when the object is flexible instead of rigid? Ruben Verweij, Pepijn Moerman and colleagues published the first measurements…

Two PhD defences on 9 June by behavioural biologist Errol Neo and underwater acousticianan Özkan Sertlek relate to measuring noise in the North Sea and the harm this noise can do to aquatic animals and their surroundings. Little is known about how harmful human noise can be to aquatic animals.

On the 5th of April 2019 our dear colleague and friend Professor Dr Mathieu Noteborn has passed away. In January of this year he was diagnosed with bowel cancer. He underwent surgery followed by chemotherapy, and despite the invasive nature of this therapy things were looking up. True to his optimistic…

On Friday 28 October, Leiden University organized its annual Physics Ladies Day for female high school students. To mark this festive day, we put the spotlight on four female researchers, who talk about their experiences in physics.

Three projects with Leiden researchers are to receive a subsidy from NWO for the construction or renovation of large-scale research facilities. They will be working on electron microscopy, an X-omics initiative and an X-ray telescope. The projects are part of the National Roadmap for Large-Scale Scientific…

One of the holy grails of drug research is to be able to assess the safety of chemicals and pharmaceuticals without using laboratory animals. Researchers from Leiden University, among others, now receive a grant from the National Science Agenda to pursue that goal.

Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery, in particular pulmonary surgery, Jerry Braun will give his inaugural lecture on Friday 23 September entitled ‘Out of countless millions’. Braun has been a professor and acting head of the LUMC’s Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery since January 2020. Covid meant…

The English taught interdisciplinary minor Violence Studies looks into various facets of interpersonal violence. Is this minor for all Leiden students? These two 'colleagues' are certain of it.

An international team of researchers, involving members from the ERC Synergy project NEXUS 1492 based at the Leiden University, the Universities of Oklahoma, Copenhagen and York reveal challenges when studying ancient microbiomes in a recent issue of Scientific Reports.

What is it like to participate in the Erasmus+ grant programme as a Master's student from Ukraine? Yevhenii Radchenko did an eight-month internship at Leiden University in 2018. Soon after, he returned as a PhD candidate. 'You have little to lose, but a lot to gain.'

Four researchers from Leiden University will receive funding from arthritis foundation ReumaNederland over the next five years. This should facilitate long-term research into arthritis.

Featuring the world’s first neural synthesizer, artist Guy Ben-Ary and his collaborators will perform at the TodaysArt Festival in The Hague on 21 September. For this performance, he collaborated with the lab of Erik Danen to transform neural stem cells into neural networks on a chip.

According to a new study by an international team of researchers from the Caribbean, Europe and North America, the Caribbean was settled by several successive population dispersals that originated on the American mainland.

Four green research institutes in Leiden are joining forces to integrate evolution and biodiversity research, at local and at the national level. Pivot in this collaboration is Frederic Lens.

From painful joints to intense fatigue: a third of rheumatism patients suffer serious effects from this chronic condition and rely long-term on medication. Leiden psychologists are to receive a subsidy from the Netherlands Arthritis Foundation to investigate whether placebo techniques can help patients…

Researchers at Leiden University and TU Delft have combined two techniques that are used to measure the structure of biomolecules, creating a method that is ten times more sensitive.

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.

Electronic versions of our publications can be obtained by sending an e-mail to Esther van den Bos: bosejvanden@fsw.leidenuniv.nl

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…

After studying Life Science and Technology, David Louwrier conducted his PhD research at LUCAS about bioart and societal debates around biotechnology. Now that his PhD thesis has been submitted, David is developing educational material about the societal aspects of the biobased economy.

A group of chemists, that includes Sander van Kasteren and Hermen Overkleeft, has discovered that azides, a certain type of chemical compound, can determine whether or not T cells respond to or ignore a vaccine. Their discovery is set to be published in Angewandte Chemie.

Salma Balazadeh, Víctor Carrión, and Jos Raaijmakers, biologists at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), have successfully applied for an NWO grant and got awarded 730.000 euros. The board of NWO Domain Applied and Engineering Sciences awarded funding for their project within the Open Technology Programme…

The transition from Middle to Upper Paleolithic is a major biological and cultural threshold in the construction of our common humanity. Technological and behavioral changes happened simultaneously to a major climatic cooling, forcing human populations to develop new strategies for the exploitation…

On 28 February, Professor E.W. Meijer, member of Leiden University’s Board of Governors, was appointed Commander in the Order of the Dutch Lion.