On February 24, 2017, the Institute of Biology Leiden organised the first edition of the Biology Career Event. The career event for third year bachelor and master students was well received by the attendants. ‘I felt that the presenters and people doing the workshops were really trying to help us get…

As of 1 July, Professor of Mathematical Biology Roeland Merks has got a full appointment at Leiden University. Before this expansion, he worked one day a week at the Mathematical Institute (MI). Merks will work half of his full appointment at the MI and the other half at the Institute of Biology Leiden…

150 new Biology students have arrived in Leiden. This is more than ever and we seem to settle among the big three Universities for Biology in the Netherlands.

Anne Marieke van der Wal-Rémy, assistant professor of African History and International Studies, has received a Comenius Teaching Fellow grant of 50,000 euros. She intends to use the grant to set up an online archive of digital primary sources, together with her students. Van der Wal-Rémy: ‘ “Once on…

The European Union has invested ten million euros in the so-called iNEXT-Discovery consortium. The goal of this new consortium is to enable European researchers to extend innovative structural biology research. The Netherlands Centre for Electron Nanoscopy (NeCEN) is also part of iNEXT-Disovery, which…

Biology student Britt van Kasterop has received a Holland Society Young Talent Award for her excellent results in the first year of study. The online awards ceremony took place on 30 November.

Thomas Bakkum en Tom van der Wel, two PhD candidates from the Leiden Institute of Chemistry, have both won poster prizes at the EMBL Chemical Biology Conference 2018 in Heidelberg.

Recently graduated Biology student Julia López Delgado is one of the winners of the Holland Society Young Talent Awards 2019. She received her prize during the festive award ceremony on 25 November in Haarlem.

The deeper understanding of an organism's pathology is important for developing treatments. Over centuries of systematic research, clinical researchers have demonstrated that the more information they acquire about the cellular properties and their organisation in the tissue, the better they can understand…

Gilles van Wezel has been appointed the new Scientific Director of the Institute of Biology Leiden starting September 1st, 2018. Van Wezel succeeds Herman Spaink, who has been the Scientific Director since September 2014.

The new academic year has started and with it education as well. Associate professor Dennis Claessen and Director of Education Han de Winde from the Institute of Biology Leiden devised an environmentally friendly introduction to the Leiden Bio Science Park for their students, with the help of Plastic…

The students of iGEM Leiden 2021 have scored well in the eponymous biology competition: they won a Gold Medal and the Best Safety & Security Award. The student team received the awards for their project DOPL LOCK, in which the team tries to make genetic modification safer.

Students of the Biology minor course Molecular Design have successfully boosted their skills in collaboration, research and writing with the recently developed E-learning Skills Platform. The biology students and their teachers greatly value the initiative. ‘Sometimes I couldn’t believe what progress…

Bacteria are everywhere. They are the most abundant organisms on earth and impact all aspects of our lives. They determine our health and shape our environment. Ariane Briegel, professor of Ultrastructural Biology, freezes bacteria super fast to gain a true-to-nature image of the internal and external…

On Thursday the 24th of November, Tseard Hoekstra and Jeroen Ververs (members of the delegation Holland Rijnland), Geert de Snoo (Dean Faculty of Science), Martina Vijver (CML), Herman Spaink (Scientific Director IBL) and Klaas Vrieling (IBL) explored possibilities for collaborations between companies…

From the 11th of May Ewa Snaar-Jagalska has been appointed Professor in the field of cellular tumor biology within the Faculty of Science at the Institute of Biology Leiden. Her research focuses on the cellular tumor biology and human cancer modeling in zebrafish

The Leiden iGEM team has won the grand prize at the iGEM international biology competition. The students won a further five prizes, including those for best diagnostics tracks and best inclusion. ‘We still can’t believe it. It feels almost surreal,’ team member Amber Schonk said yesterday to University…

It is the dream of Professor Susana Chuva de Sousa Lopes to grow fertile egg cells in the lab. But she says there is a long way to go in her discipline until that is possible. This is the message of her inaugural lecture on 29 June 2020, the first digital inaugural lecture at Leiden University.

During the spring of 2021, a group of eight biology students from Leiden set out into the dunes in search of amphibians. Using DNA, they determined the geographic origin of the animals. And guess what? In many cases they discovered exotic populations of animals that do not naturally belong in The Netherlands.…

How does the extracellular matrix coordinate endothelial cell behavior during angiogenesis, and how do metabolic waste-products and matrix-degrading enzymes produced by the tumour modify the extracellular matrix so as the change the cellular coordination?

Gayathri Jaikamur has been awarded by the Dopper Foundation in the Change Make Challenge. She is a student of Masters Biology (Specialisation: Evolution, Conservation and Biodiversity) from India - working under the supervision of CML-researcher Dr. Thijs Bosker (and co-supervision of Dr. Nadja Brun).…

This project is situated within the context of an innovation of the biology curriculum in Dutch secondary schools. The main purposes are (1) to clarify the relation between teachers’ practical knowledge and the decisions they make when planning and implementing their lessons and (2) to develop a professional…

On the 21st of June, Marieke Meelen succesfully defended her PhD-thesis and graduated. LUCL congratulates Marieke on this great result.

Professor emeritus of Animal Behaviour Carel ten Cate is awarded honorary membership by the Dutch Society for Behavioural Biology (NVG). He received the honour for his activities for the Society and the discipline of behavioural biology.

Promotor: J. van der Greef; Co-promotor: E. van Wijk, M. Wang

The cannabinoid receptor type 2 (CB2R) is associated with several inflammatory diseases with an unmet medical need (e.g. Alzheimers, multiple sclerosis, reumatoid arthritis). Development of new chemical biology strategies to study this protein is essential to aid future development of drugs for these…

Please note that the course Molecular Biology for Physics will start on Monday 5 February. Please check the schedules for the time and location!

From 1 October, two new Directors of Education will start at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL). Dennis Claessen as the new director for the master's programme of Biology and Marcel Schaaf as director for the Biology bachelor's programme. Claessen and Schaaf have been appointed for a period of four…

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.

In Leiden University's video series on Leiden and The Hague as student cities, students interview each other at their favorite spots. In the fifth video of this series, archaeology student Azra spoke with Biology student Floris in Naturalis Biodiversity Center.

Biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) for natural products are widespread in microbial genomes, and they are rapidly exchanged. This research assesses the factors that control the spread of BGCs and resistance genes in nature. This includes risk assessment for the spread of engineered DNA in nature.

A structural investigation of coiled coil peptides used as membrane fusogens, mimicing naturally occuring coiled-coil fusion proteins. Synthetic modifications have been made to alter lipid attachment, secondary structure and to insert photoactive azobenzene moieties for active control over coiled coil…

Climate change is a challenge for both current and future generations. New biological resources have to be developed in order to meet the demand for energy as well as the demand for food.

Social resilience and security has never been more important. Over the last 2 years, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a considerable disturbance to our personal and social lives. As a result, the general population reports more stress, loneliness and decreased quality of life. At the same time, there…

This article written by Marieke Liem & Alexander Kamprad investigates the relationship between terrorism and interpersonal violence. They conducted cross-national analyses on the effects of terrorism mortality rates on homicide rates. Results showed that terrorism appears to be robustly and positively…

Tackling key challenges of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry to aid drug discovery is one of the focus areas of Leiden University. To this end, the Leiden Early Drug Discovery & Development network (LED3) was established by the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC), the Institute of Biology Leiden…

Lecture

Streptomyces present a valuable platform for natural product discovery. Lugdunomycin is a novel angucycline-derived polyketide from Streptomyces sp QL37, with unprecedented skeleton and antimicrobial activity.

The general aim of the project is a description and analysis of the Leiden anatomical collections from a humanities perspective. The project investigates how historical and cultural practices and concerns have shaped anatomical preparations and how exhibitions of the anatomical body have informed cultural…