The Translational Immuno-Pharmacology group works on translating the efficacy of anti-infective therapy from preclinical (e.g. in vivo) to clinical, and is led by Rob van Wijk. Infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, are in constant need of new therapies that work better, faster, and with less risk…

On the 6th of April, Toni Pedrós Caballero successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Toni on this achievement!

This dissertation presents an in-depth study of the clause-typing system in Ecuadorian Siona.

Metal-based prodrugs based on ruthenium(II) polypyridyl complexes have proven to be very suitable for application in both photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photo-activated chemotherapy (PACT).

On 9 January 2019, Willem van der Muur defended his thesis 'Land rights and the forces of adat in democratizing Indonesia'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. A.W. Bedner and Prof. dr. J.M. Otto.

Influenza CD8(+) T-cell epitopes are conserved amongst influenza strains and can be recognized by influenza-specific cytotoxic T-cells (CTLs), which can rapidly clear infected cells. An influenza peptide vaccine that elicits these CTLs would therefore be an alternative to current influenza vaccines,…

Explore the one‑year MSc Dutch Politics at Leiden University: core and elective courses, thesis research, and analytical skills training in a small‑group learning environment.

In this article, Isabelle Frens, Jelle van Buuren and Edwin Bakker aim to understand anti-government protests by focusing on empty signifiers.

On Thursday 14 February, the first ILS Lunch Seminar of this year took place. Beryl ter Haar and Yannick van den Brink gave two very insightful presentations on their current and accomplished research.

Should the media refer to a criminal’s ethnicity? Law students held an online afternoon symposium on discrimination in the criminal justice system – and, while they were at it, society at large.

Knowledge and culture subproject 1:

Promotor: Prof.dr. E. Deprettere

Astronomers led by Simon Portegies Zwart used simulations to reconstruct how three stars were ejected from the star cluster R136, 60,000 years ago. The analysis reveals that five stars were involved in the event in the Tarantula Nebula.

Political scientist Ruud Koole (Institute Political Science, Leiden University) has been appointed to a state commission that will investigate whether the Dutch parliamentary system and the parliamentary democracy need to be reformed.

Prof. Ton Liefaard and dr. Stephanie Rap (together with Apollonia Bolscher LL.M.) are involved in developing a training Toolkit and Manual for the project Improving Juvenile Justice Systems in Europe: Training for Professionals (JUST/2013/FRC/AG).

Due to a major telephone disruption, 112 was unavailable for hours on Monday 24 June. At Albert Heijn, Tuesday 25 June, cash registers refused service. Bibi van den Berg, professor in Cyber Security Governance at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, looks back on aspects of the disasters of…

Minister Judith Uitermark proposes that 125 seats will become electable through provincial electoral lists and only 25 seats through a national electoral list, according to Dutch RTL news. Wim Voermans, Professor of Constitutional Law, comments on the plan.

The database research community has made tremendous strides in developing powerful database engines that allow for efficient analytical query processing.

An international team led by Leiden astronomers has taken the first-ever image of a young, Sun-like star accompanied by two giant exoplanets. The researchers used The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope for this, known as ESO’s VLT. Images of systems with multiple exoplanets are extremely…

Knowledge and culture subproject 3:

Is private law ready for the challenges of our time?

Er is een nijpend cellen- en personeelstekort in Nederlandse gevangenissen. En dit is niet voor de eerste keer. Miranda Boone, hoogleraar criminologie en vergelijkende penologie, sprak met Trouw over de problematiek: ‘Het aantal gevangenen is het resultaat van beleid.’

Last Thursday the Dutch House of Representatives held a debate on children being put into care when the childcare benefits scandal (toeslagenaffaire) had caused problems for their families. Four Leiden University academics were asked by the House to produce a fact sheet for this debate, bringing together…

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.

Ten years ago, a new reward system was introduced in Dutch prisons: the only way prisoners could earn extra ‘freedoms’ was through good behaviour. Jan Maarten Elbers concludes that this system does little to encourage behavioural change and can even be counterproductive.

The student loan system, implemented in 2015 in part to improve the quality of Dutch education, is facing political backlash. Despite having signed the student loan system agreement in 2015, both GroenLinks and PvdA have had a change of heart.

International researchers have, for the first time, pinpointed the moment when planets began to form around a star beyond the Sun. Using the ALMA telescope, in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner, and the James Webb Space Telescope, they have observed the creation of the first…

NWO awarded a grant for novel research on Complex and Distributed Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). The grant will fund a four-year research project in which they hope to devise a method to explore and find optimal designs for CPS. Todor Stefanov, Associate Professor at the Leiden Institute of Advanced…

Vast, often populated, areas in dryland ecosystems face the dangers of desertification.

On 23-24 June 2022, Jan Aart Scholte and Valentina Carraro were invited to the Annual Meeting of the Academic Council on the United Nations System. Jan Aart Scholte gave a paper on the ‘Institutional Sources of Legitimacy at ICANN’. Valentina Carraro was a roundtable speaker during the collective entry…

How can we ensure that we act climate-proof and climate-neutral? We asked climate and earth scientist and lecturer at the Climate Change course Joeri Reinders.

This 3-year EU Erasmus+ co-funded project focuses on the strengthening and improvement of teaching qualitative research methods across a range of disciplines in the Social Sciences and Humanities in Bhutan.

In this research group, led by Dr. Joost Beltman, the aim is to employ mathematical and computational dynamical modelling approaches in order to quantitatively and mechanistically understand the dynamical behaviour and regulation of intracellular networks of genes, proteins and metabolites as well as…

Our immune system protects us against disease, but every now and then, something goes wrong: an enemy invades our bodies or our immune system attacks our own cells and we become ill. Doctors and researchers at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) want to be able to manipulate the immune system…

The life cycle of comets near the star Beta Pictoris is similar to that of comets in our own solar system. This is the conclusion of a team of astronomers from the Netherlands, France and Brazil. It seems that, just like in our own solar system, there are fewer comets as the star gets older. The researchers,…

Disk formation around stars is an important factor in determining whether one or multiple stars evolve. But the big picture of star formation is still far from complete, says PhD researcher Nadia Murillo.

The ILS Lunch seminars bring colleagues and students from Leiden Law School together, providing an informal setting to hear what researchers from other research programs and institutes are working on. On Thursday 14 February, the first edition of the ILS Lunch Seminar series of 2019 takes place. This…

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…

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.

On 3 and 4 November 2022, Melanie Fink convened a Workshop to bring together the authors of an Edited Volume on ‘Access to Justice and the EU’s Remedies System’, to be published in early 2024 by Cambridge University Press.

Following ASEAN Customs Transit System pilots in Cambodia, Lao, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, the ASEAN Customs Transit System (ACTS) system has now been formally launched for general use.

Promotor: Ed F. Deprettere, Co-promotor: Todor P. Stefanov

Alfons Chorus was the ‘founding father’ of Psychology in Leiden. His son Rogier Chorus recently obtained his PhD at Leiden University based on his biography of his father. He talked to his Leiden PhD supervisor Willem Heiser about his father’s innovations, his plagiarism and how he was misunderstood…

Bernardo Almeida will give a webinar on Building land tenure systems in Timor-Leste on February 18, 2021, from 15.30 - 17.00. This webinar is organised by the KITLV.

Mark Klaassen recently gave a lecture at the Aliens Division of the Court of Rotterdam on the impact on the judicial system of the Dutch cabinet’s plans on immigration and asylum and the future implementation of the EU Migration Pact.

The master's programme Comparative Criminal Justice at Leiden University focuses on criminology, criminal law and their mutual relationship. The programme offers an international comparative perspective, analysing criminal justice systems, legislation and policies in common law and civil law countri…

We focus on a better understanding of the mechanisms of cancer drug resistance and metastasis.

The research addresses the question of “what is the impact of geopolitical changes to the pivot states in the Middle East? With special focus on Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia.”