This work describes the use of click-to-release chemistry to get spatiotemporal control over immunocytokine activity. Until now, immunocytokines (cytokines coupled to a tumor-targeting-moiety) remained active throughout the body, being able to bind their respective receptors, causing mild to severe…

The research described in this thesis focused on the preparation of S/N functionalized carbene ligands and their transition metal complexes, and the exploration of their application as electrocatalysts for proton reduction.

This thesis has described novel synthetic methods to produce a variety of (glyco)peptides and their application in the study of various immunological processes.

This week the European Court of Justice ruled that companies in the European Union as of now have to register the amount of hours their employees work. Member States will be responsible for ensuring employers establish such registration systems.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most frequent neurodegenerative disorder and the primary cause of dementia. The neuropathological features of AD include the occurrence of senile plaques, neurofibrillary tangles, decreased synaptic density, and loss of neurons. An obstacle in the study and treatment…

A dense region of a gaseous and dusty cloud collapses to form a protostar surrounded by a disk and an envelope. This thesis uses both observations and models to study physical and chemical conditions of these protostellar systems which are likely where planets start to form.

Carbohydrates, or sugars, are the most diverse and most abundant biomolecules known. However, the isolation of carbohydrate samples in sufficient amounts and purity is often impractical or even impossible, so the chemical synthesis of glycosides becomes relevant. The glycosylation reaction, in which…

The aim of this research was to develop an effective, generative, and practical approach to enhance students’ structure-property reasoning (SPR).

Two excellent young chemists, Jeroen Codée and Sander van Kasteren, have received an ECHO grant for €260,000 from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). This funding will allow them to begin their research projects.

The inverse electron demand Diels-Alder (IEDDA) pyridazine elimination emerged in 2013 as a new bioorthogonal reaction and constitutes a prime example of what is now known as dissociative bioorthogonal chemistry. The research described in this Thesis aims to develop synthetic strategies which enable…

With defending his thesis ‘Applications of topology to Weyl semimetals and quantum computing’, the Leiden theoretical physicist Tom O'Brien has gained the rare 'cum laude' qualification. The freshly minted PhD has started a five year research programme on quantum algorithms for quantum chemistry, funded…

Sander van Kasteren (Professor of Molecular Immunology) makes the invisible visible. He will explain more in his inaugural lecture.

Optimization, mechanisms of action and predictors of the outcome of light therapy in depression: A multicenter randomized trial

An international team of laboratory astrophysicists and astrochemical modellers has shown that glycine, the simplest amino acid and an important building block of life, can form under the harsh conditions that govern chemistry in space. The results have been published this week in Nature Astronomy and…

The challenge is considerable, but so is the satisfaction when it succeeds: creating complex sugar molecules that play a role in biology.

Shell cooperates with theoretical physicists and chemists of Leiden University to research how quantum computer algorithms can help simulate complex molecules.

This Thesis describes the synthesis of D-alanylated ribitol-based wall teichoic acids from S. aureus to probe their interaction with immune-binding partners.

The aim of this thesis is to study cell-cell interactions and the development of an assay to explore and quantify the exchange of membrane compounds.

Supramolecular polymers are class of materials that are formed by non-covalent interactions such as hydrogen bonding, π-π interactions, electrostatic interactions and the hydrophobic effect.

Since February 1st, 2017 Célia Fonseca Guerra is appointed as professor at the LIC with a chair in applied theoretical chemistry. She will be a member of the Theoretical Chemistry group. Her research interests are related to bioinorganic chemistry and catalysis and her appointment at the LIC will strengthen…

Promotor: Prof.dr. E. Bouwman

This thesis studies theoretical surface chemistry within the field of heterogeneous catalysis.

Professor Hermen Overkleeft has received the esteemed Roy L. Whistler International Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry for 2024 by the International Carbohydrate Organization. The award recognises Overkleeft’s outstanding contributions to the field of carbohydrate chemistry and biochemistry.

Nathaniel Martin has been appointed professor in the field of Bioorganic Chemistry within the Faculty of Science at the Institute of Biology Leiden, starting from 1 March 2018. His research focuses on using new (bio)chemical approaches to combat infectious disease, as well as on developing new molecular…

Since the global COVID-19 pandemic, the coronavirus responsible (SARS-CoV-2) has been extensively probed for promising protein targets to establish drug-based therapies.

As of July 1, Professor of Bio-organic Synthesis Hermen Overkleeft will be appointed as the Scientific Director of the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC). He will succeed Jaap Brouwer, who has been managing the institute for the past twelve years. Overkleeft has been appointed for a period of four…

Andreas Bender, Assistant Professor for Medicinal Chemistry in the Medicinal Chemistry Division of the Leiden / Amsterdam Center for Drug Research, received the

Leiden chemist Roxanne Kieltyka is part of the 2018 Talented 12 list of the American Chemical Society. That was announced by the journal Chemical & Engineering News on 19 August.

The Chemistry and LST master’s programmes are both structured on an individual basis and well-embedded in the research at the faculty. Those are the main conclusions of the oral report at the end of the visit of the visitation panel on October 10th.

How do fats and enzymes in the brain contribute to multiple sclerosis? In his PhD research, Daan van der Vliet combined chemistry and neuroscience to gain new insights into how brain disorders develop.

During the 20th anniversary meeting of the Netherlands' Catalysis and Chemistry Conference, Marc Koper received the Netherlands Catalysis and Chemistry Award. ‘The ultimate candidate for the prize’, it says in one of the recommendation letters.

With Sylvestre Bonnet, Jeroen Codée and Remus Dame, the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC) will be getting no less than three new professors. Bonnet will become professor in Bioinorganic Chemistry, Codée professor in Organic Chemistry and Dame professor in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry.

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).

In this thesis, bioorthogonal chemistry is combined with correlative light-electron microscopy to selectively label and study pathogenic intracellular bacteria within the host immune cell.

Not experiments and lab coats, but computers and artificial intelligence: this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to the inventors of the groundbreaking AI model, AlphaFold. This programme accurately predicts protein structures based on their genetic code—a crucial step in understanding biological…

The redox-conversion reaction of metal-disulfide and metal-thiolate complexes are important, as they may shed light on electron-transfer reactions that often occur in Nature.

The dark matter of biology: clumps of sugar molecules that, for example, form sugary webs around pathogens. We know very little about them. Wouter Remmerswaal threw all his talent into the challenge – both in the lab and as a modeller – and succeeded. He received his PhD on 12th September.

Chemical biology research at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry is aimed at understanding biological processes at the molecular level to strengthen the knowledge base of human health and disease. The approach to achieve this goal is a fundamental chemical one; with the aid of chemical probes biological…

How do classroom demonstration experiments help students learn chemical reasoning? Marie-Jetta den Otter, PhD student at ICLON, researched this. She defends her thesis on 6 December.

Last year, chemists Dennis Wander and Hermen Overkleeft contributed to an important discovery about a widely used cancer drug. Their research has now been recognised as Finalist for the PNAS Cozzarelli Prize in the Biomedical Sciences class.

In order to be able to develop effective medicine and treatments to prevent or cure autoimmune diseases or cancer we need to understand the mechanisms how they arise and what drives their course.Unravelling the fundamental molecular mechanisms influencing the onset and course of diseases such as allergies,…

A common assumption in chemistry is that the coordination number of a catalyst's surface determines the reactivity of the reaction it catalyses. Strikingly, Leiden chemists have now proven that this is not true for nature’s most simple chemical reaction: the dissociation of hydrogen. The researchers…

Quantum hardware comes with a different computing paradigm and new ways to tackle applications. Much effort has to be put into understanding how to leverage this technology to give real-world advantages in areas of interest for industries such as combinatorial optimization or machine learning.

In the search for new medicines against diseases such as cancer, a Leiden team has developed a new workflow. This approach combines artificial intelligence (AI) with molecular modelling and is suitable for finding unknown and innovative drug structures, the researchers proved.