An international partnership of brain researchers from 35 research centres - from the US to China - including the Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC), has collected resting-state functional MRI data from more than 1400 healthy volunteers and put the information online so that it is available…

In the Netherlands, 1.55 million people suffer from cardiovascular diseases. Yet, acute cardiovascular events, such as a heart attack or stroke, often occur unexpectedly. That is because many people do not know they are at risk for such an event. Immunological researcher Amanda Foks and her colleagues…

Prof. dr. Marieke Liem, Professor Social Resilience and Safety at ISGA, discussed the facts and fiction surrounding serial killers on Dutch NPO Radio 1.

Positive expectations about treatment increase the likelihood of success. The new Center for Interdisciplinary Placebo Studies Leiden is therefore promoting research on the placebo effect and offering expertise and training for care providers. At the opening, the founders demonstrated their VR communications…

On 10 March 2017, Professor Karel Luyben (TU Delft) welcomed the ‘Metabolomics GO FAIR Implementation Network’ as community initiative to start the European Open Science Cloud. The network aims to implement the FAIR data principles in the field of metabolomics in Europe.

Morning yoga, having your resumé checked at the information market, or dancing for inclusiveness: just a small selection of the activities of the first Science PhD Day on Thursday 18 April. Around 120 PhD candidates from all eight institutes of our faculty attended the day. 'A great success', according…

The quality of vaccines is still often tested by using laboratory animals. That has to change, according to researchers from Leiden University and the vaccinological institute Intravacc. Together they went searching for a test method that makes animal testing unnecessary. The first promising results…

On 5 November 2021, Professor Michiel van de Sande of the Department of Orthopedics in the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) delivered his inaugural lecture ‘The Art of Doing and Doing Nothing’. Van de Sande used the opportunity to explore both physical and philosophical aspects of co-decision…

How dangerous are micro- and nanoplastics? Do they affect the environment? What harm can they do to our bodies? Questions that we can now finally answer because of Fazel Abdolahpur Monikh. Together with his colleagues, he developed a method to detect and quantify nano-sized plastics. Their paper has…

The Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) is a proud member of the NExt ApplicationS of Quantum Computing (NEASQC) consortium, which recently received an ERC H2020 grant to stimulate the state-of-the-art in industrial quantum computing. LIACS contributes research and development of new…

The immune system plays an important role in the development of atherosclerosis, the underlying cause of cardiovascular diseases. Thomas van der Heijden has discovered that immunosuppressants may play a preventative role. PhD defence 19 December.

Clear information about support services, a well-being self-test and advice on finding a room. YounginLeiden.nl helps students and other young people get started, literally and figuratively. Why is this site so desperately needed?

People who have taken antibiotics in the past three months pay more attention to negative facial expressions, according to research by postdoc Katerina Johnson and assistant professor Laura Steenbergen. This may explain how antibiotics increase the risk of developing depression.

Researchers at the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) have managed to culture human heart muscle cells on a massive scale. This is an exceptional achievement because it is very difficult to replicate heart muscle cells outside the body. Using a special technique, the researchers have now created…

As a bachelor student of Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences, Femke Vlaswinkel wrote a research proposal she was allowed to carry out in her master’s BPS. Femke subsequently graduated with honors. Her research was published in the journal Scientific Reports, she won an award from the Dutch Pharmacy Society…

On January 11, 2025, our esteemed colleague and emeritus professor Arne van der Gen passed away. Arne was a professor of Organic Chemistry from 1980 until his retirement in 2000, and was a great advocate of the integration and harmonization of European education in chemistry. Arne was 90 years old.

The Leiden students who participated in the iGEM synthetic biology competition have won the prize for best production. They developed a way to have bacteria produce the substance suckerine, a protein derived from the Humboldt squid. By doing so, they want to help heal burn wounds. ‘The announcement…

Cells in our bodies are often threatened by errors in our own proteins. The FLOW consortium, comprising scientists from various institutions including Leiden, is poised to meticulously map out for the first time how cells control proteins, correcting or removing faulty ones. This endeavour holds promise…

‘Violence as a Population Health Problem’ is one of 33 interdisciplinary projects that have been launched thanks to a Kiem grant. The project team will analyse a large patient database to identify links between violence and other health problems. ‘Violence can also be an expression of other factors,’…

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.

Within a month, the Wake Up to Corona crowdfunding campaign had already raised 600,000 euros for corona research in Leiden. The goal is to raise enough money for the LUMC to set up a second laboratory that is safe enough for research into the new virus. The initiative has not escaped the attention of…

How do you count the nanoplastics in your body? Leiden researchers published a method in Nature Protocols today that should make this easier. Important for both environmental and medicine research.

How do I conduct research? How do I structure, conduct and record what I’ve thought of and done? The Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences Programme didn’t just want students to perform a series of tests for the Cellular Biochemistry practical course. After a complete re-vamp - ‘From traditional cookbook lab…

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.

On 8 October, the Leiden Bio Science Park won the Menzis award for the Best Business Park 2009. The jury particularly praised the fact that 25 years ago when the park was founded, the choice was made in favour of the biomedical life sciences, a specialisation still successful today.

The Netherlands Association for Sleep-Wake Research is studying this issue. Lead researcher Kristiaan van der Heijden, Leiden psychologist and sleep specialist, invites students to take part in the study.

Martijn Verkuilen is the winner of the Unilever Research Prize 2022. By transferring DNA from a plant into yeast, he made the first move to produce a new drug for type 2 diabetes. He collected his prize in Wageningen on 24 November.

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When focussing attention, the neurotransmitters noradrenaline and acetylcholine play an important role. This new finding made by psychologist Stephen Brown provides clues for further research on how focussed attention comes about. Dissertation defence on 16 June.

Mysterious protein fibers show up in the brain cells of people suffering from Alzheimer’s' disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. Leiden physicist Louise Jawerth has been awarded a Vidi grant to find out how these fibers form in the first place.

Michiel Veldhuis received the most public votes for the C.J. Kok Public Award and may therefore call himself Discoverer of the Year. Veldhuis researches how climate change affects savannah ecosystems in Africa and how we can protect them.

Do you often find yourself exhausted in the lecture hall or at your workplace? Not great for your mental well-being, as Laura Pape knows. She is investigating how an online self-help program can assist in addressing sleep issues and preventing mental health problems. Join her on this elevator pitch…

With the aid of physics and a minuscule magnet, researchers have discovered a new structure of telomeric DNA. Telomeres are sometimes seen as the key to living longer. They protect genes from damage but get a bit shorter each time a cell divides. If they become too short, the cell dies. The new discovery…

How can we better prepare students for their practicals, so that they learn more from them? Marjo de Graauw and her colleagues want to renew science education. Together they will develop interactive teaching materials to introduce students to laboratory courses. They are receiving a SURF grant of €100,000…

For his ground-breaking chemical biological research, a VICI-grant has been awarded to Mario van der Stelt, professor of Molecular physiology at Leiden University. In a new research line, he aims to discover binding sites for new medicines against inflammations in the brain.

Researchers from Leiden University, McMaster University and Public Health Ontario are calling on colleagues to track down archival specimens of mosquitoes from museums and other collections and to examine them with modern methods. This will tell them more about malaria transmission.

Macrophages – the front line of our immune system – protect us from infections. But in the case of the tuberculosis bacteria, this often goes wrong. The group of Annemarie Meijer from the Leiden Institute of Biology has now discovered that macrophages in zebrafish are better able to eliminate tuberculosis…

Governance of crime and social disorder debate on Pacifying Police Unit (UPP) winning lot! In the group presentation in the CSM-elective ‘governance of crime and social disorder’ of teacher Elke Devroe CSM students battled again for the winning lot, namely this blog published in the Leiden University…

In June 2016, Janine Geerling and Marjo de Graauw were awarded a LUF-grant of €10.000 to design a digital laboratory support tool for the 2nd year BFW practical course on biochemistry. Now the pilot has kicked of with all 240 BFW Bsc students!

On Friday October 30th 2015 the sixth annual Jan Reedijk Symposium will be held. The main lectures of the day will be

Four Leiden researchers, who have recently obtained their PhDs, will receive a Rubicon Grant from NWO to conduct research abroad. A total of 22 scientists have received Rubicon Grants. This grant aims to provide young, promising scientists with international research experience.

Could we stop cancer cells by cutting off their energy supply? That’s what Dione Blok, a bachelor’s student in Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences, aimed to find out during her thesis research. She investigated a compound that affects the tumour cells’ energy metabolism. ‘Hopefully, these insights will provide…

The Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), the Danstem Institute from the University of Copenhagen and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne have received 300m euros from the Novo Nordisk foundation. The aim of this new international consortium is to bring stem-cell based therapies…

More and more people worldwide have infections caused by bacteria that are resistant to many types of antibiotic. Why is this and how big of a problem is it?

Preventie, signalering en opsporing van seksuele uitbuiting van jongeren kan effectiever via buren, klasgenoten en andere mensen uit hun sociale leefomgeving. Dit volgt na onderzoek van universitair docent Ieke de Vries in samenwerking met het Centrum Kinderhandel en Mensenhandel (CKM).

Doctors are there to diagnose and treat people. But sometimes a diagnosis can’t be made or doctors differ in opinion. Luckily, Alireza Mashaghi Tabari and his research team have developed a new framework to solve medical diagnostic problems. This framework can also be applied to many other research…

Pharmacologist Walter Boiten developed a new method to determine the amount of lipids in a person's skin. With this method he tested the effects of a new cream he developed for eczema patients. The first results are promising. Boiten defends his dissertation on 15 January.

Researchers from Leiden University have developed a method to predict which sellers will be successful in illegal online marketplaces. This could help the police track down big players on the dark web, the hidden part of the internet.

Neeltje Blankenstein receives an LUF grant to conduct research on online risk behaviour among young people. What risks do young people take online and why? 'With this research, we not only want to help prevent serious risk behaviour, but also understand what drives young people to it.'

The promising early results of an international study have shown that insulin-producing cells grown from stem cells can cure the disease. The new Cure One LUMC research centre aims to accelerate this breakthrough.