An international team of astronomers, led by Will Rocha of Leiden Observatory, using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have discovered that the key ingredients for making potentially habitable worlds are present in early-stage protostars, where planets have not yet formed.

Organisation

Biopharmaceutical sciences master's student Nicole ter Laak has won the KNMP Studentenprijs 2023. She wins the prize for her research project on dosing guidelines of antibiotics in newborn babies with a very low birth weight for gestational age.

On the International Day of Women and Girls in Science (11 February) RISE puts the spotlight on four women in our faculty. The Researchers in Science for Equality (RISE) network is launching a junior board on this special day. Their main task? Optimise the information provision between RISE and the…

Last Friday the global Antibiotics Awareness Week begun: an entire week dedicated to antibiotic use. Antibiotics researchers from the LACDR therefore set out to tell primary school pupils about their research. Through role-playing, pupils were drawn into the world of antibiotics: 'Can the teacher not…

Emeritus professor Joke Bouwstra (LACDR) will receive this year's Dr Saal van Zwanenberg Ereprijs: a tribute to her years of fundamental research on the skin and the transport of drugs through the skin. This is the first time the prize has gone to a woman.

A memorable farewell symposium and a royal distinction: Professor Joke Bouwstra could not have completed her career at Leiden with more pleasure. On Friday, 14 June, she received a Royal Honor from Leiden Mayor Peter van der Velden, who appointed Bouwstra as a Knight in the Order of the Dutch Lion for…

Sabine de Winter

One of our PhD candidates at the LACDR, Joey Zuijdervelt, recently achieved recognition by winning the first prize in the ‘Schild-De Groen Onderzoeksprijzen’ for cancer research. His award-winning master’s thesis explored glioblastoma multiforme through an innovative orthotopic zebrafish xenograft model,…

Leiden Law School has developed a new course for the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee, bringing together scientific research and professional practice. The course starts on 5 February 2026 at the Centre for Professional Learning in The Hague.

Het voorstel van D66 om een wetsartikel zo te veranderen dat een politieke partij kan worden verboden, is onverstandig, zegt rechtsfilosoof Bastiaan Rijpkema. Hij spreekt er uitgebreid over tijdens een interview met de Volkskrant. ‘Het is overduidelijk bedoeld om één specifieke partij aan te pakken:…

Jasper Knoester startte op 1 januari als onze nieuwe decaan. Hoe gaat het met hem, wat doet hij precies en hoe ziet zijn dag eruit? In elke nieuwsbrief geeft Jasper een inkijkje in zijn leven als decaan.

On Thursday 22 September 2022, the posthumous PhD ceremony will be held of Thijmen Nuninga who passed away February this year. His doctoral thesis had already been approved at that time.

Saniye Çelik, Professor by Special Appointment of Diversity, Inclusion, and Policing at Leiden University, has received the Woman in the Media Award at Beeld & Geluid in Hilversum. She was selected as the winner by the jury from three female experts with the most votes.

Nico Verloop, Professor Emeritus of Educational Studies at Leiden University, passed away on 5 June 2025. Nico was the founder and first professor-director (from 1995-2010) of ICLON (Leiden University Graduate School of Teaching) at Leiden University.

Over the past year, many students and staff members of Leiden Law School have been lauded for their extraordinary achievements. For instance: a grant received, an award won, or an appointment by a special committee. We have combined all these achievements in our Honours Gallery 2022:

On 24 May 2023, Professor Wannes VandenBussche of Ghent University delivered his inaugural lecture to accept the TPR rotating professorship in the Leiden Academy Building. The title of his inaugural lecture was: ‘De EU-dimensie van het burgerlijk bewijsrecht: een mozaïek van opportuniteiten en valkuilen’…

Jessica den Oudsten won this year’s Uitgeverij Verloren/Johan de Witt thesis award for history with her master’s thesis, entitled "The descendants of Norwegian and Danish Immigrants". The prize was awarded for the eighth time in collaboration with Elsevier Weekblad. The incentive award went to Amber…

During a recent event, the Leiden Institute of Environmental Sciences presented the breadth of its research on biodiversity.

It is with great sadness that we have learned that Jan Vranken passed away on Tuesday 17 June. In 2005, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Leiden University in recognition of his work.

The students and staff at the Faculty of Science celebrated Pi Day with… pie! More than twenty participants baked a pie for the first edition of the Leiden Science baking competition – people queued up to sample the creations.

The Personal Professional Skills Lab (PPSL) is an elective programme for all FSW bachelor students that enter in 2024 and on. The aim of the PPSL is to encourage students to develop personal and professional skills during the bachelor, that will give them greater resilience and direction: both in their…

The Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) is closely connected to the education of our biopharmaceutical students, providing both courses and immersive internship projects. Among these is the Bachelor Research Project (BOO), which offers many students their first real scientific experience…

Meijerslezing, Meijersprijzen en Van Wersch springplankprijs en Nieuwjaarsreceptie 2024

Op dinsdag 10 januari 2022 zijn tijdens de facultaire nieuwjaarsreceptie de jaarlijkse Meijersprijzen en de scriptieprijzen uitgereikt.

Lecture, NGL-lezing

The fact that corona has created a wave of creativity is evident when walking around in the lab of pharmacologist Coen van Hasselt from the LACDR. Suddenly there were far fewer master's students permitted in the lab for their research. So Van Hasselt came up with smart solutions to enable lab work to…

Due to the increasing resistance to certain antibiotics, the life-threatening condition sepsis is becoming harder to treat. For her PhD project, Leiden pharmacologist Feiyan Liu used mathematical modeling to find out how antibiotics can be used more effectively to cure sepsis.

When a bacterium becomes more resistant to one antibiotic, it sometimes becomes more sensitive to another. To better understand this interaction, researchers from the Leiden Institute of Biology (IBL) and the Leiden Academic Center for Drug Research (LACDR) under supervision of Daniel Rozen and Coen…