The centre of our Galaxy is so dark and dense that it is almost impossible to observe what is inside. By catching the rare hypervelocity stars that are ejected from it, Elena Maria Rossi aims to unveil the mysterious environment around the supermassive black hole inside. But she’ll also be solving another…

The research described in this Thesis was aimed at designing and synthesizing nature-inspired compounds as part of TB vaccine discovery.

Of the 111 Spinoza Prizes that have been awarded since 1995, 28 have gone to researchers from Leiden University.

Glucocorticoids (GCs) are widely prescribed as anti-inflammatory drugs due to their well-established immunosuppressive effects.

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Can small molecule drugs restore the immune system’s ability to fight tuberculosis by boosting autophagy?

The aim of this thesis was to study phage infection in Streptomyces, focused on cell wall-deficient cells. Bacteriophages (or phages in short) attach to the cell wall of bacteria after which they replicate and lyse the host cell.

Control of infectious diseases poses continuous challenges for human health.

Researchers at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and Radboud university medical center have been given the green light to deliberately infect volunteers with malaria in order to test a highly promising vaccine on them.

The current resurgence of whooping cough is alarming, and improved pertussis vaccines are thought to offer a solution. Outer membrane vesicle vaccines (omvPV) are potential vaccine candidates, but omvPV-induced humoral responses have not yet been characterized in detail.

Promotor: G.F.A. Kersten, W. Jiskoot, Co-promotor: B. Metz

Estudio arqueológico de la primera ciudad española en la Tierra Firme de América: Santa María de la Antigua del Darién

Research at the Macromolecular Biochemistry group is comprised of the following research themes:

Leiden University and Leiden University Medical Center have joined the Netherlands Centre for One Health (NCOH), further strengthening the academic network in which such problems as antimicrobial resistance are studied.

This thesis focuses on two processes involved in fighting infections: metabolism and immune cell motility and navigation.

Tuberculosis is a major global health problem caused by the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, claiming more than a million lives annually.

How can efficient chemical synthesis and clinical microbiology be combined to identify new antibiotics against Clostridioides difficile infections?

This project focuses on two Mayan languages in contact: Awakateko and K’iche’. With the aim to create a database to be accessible to researchers, students, and indigenous activists interested in Mayan languages, this project will train Mayan speakers on transcription, translation, and analysis of…

Promotor: C.A.M.J.J. van den Hondel, Co-promotor: Sandra de Weert

The Department of Medical Microbiology at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) is researching antiviral drugs that could treat and prevent SARS-CoV-2 in various projects. One part of the PanCoroNed project is being led by Martijn van Hemert and involves lab tests into the antiviral effect of molecules…

In STAYAHEAD data-intensive approaches are being developed to ”decode the human immunome” with a focus on a global vaccine strategy. They have developed a rapid mass spectrometric test to analyse in real-time large numbers of variants of SARS-CoV-2 and the host immune response, and use these data to…

Publishing about your research is a key aspect of your career as a researcher; the majority of research publications are written in English. When applying for research funding, too, it is very important to ensure that your application is written in clear, accessible English. Maria Sherwood-Smith, Academic…

The outbreaks of AIDS and COVID-19 showed clearly how infectious viruses can influence people’s lives. Investigating the changes in the host metabolism may provide a paradigm shift to consider immune-metabolic interactions as therapeutic targets.

Un)timely Crises explores how ‘crisis’—as a narrative, concept, grammar, and experience—structures time and space. This collectively written volume extends Bakhtin’s ‘chronotope’ to challenge mobilizations of crisis within neoliberal governmentality. The book explores how contemporary crises can trigger…

Promotor: Prof.dr. H.P. Spaink, Co-promotor: Prof. dr. A.H. Meijer

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the phenomenon that pathogens become insensitive to the antibiotics that we use against them. A growing number of pathogens is becoming resistant, with methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) as the most famous example. But while the threat of AMR represents a slow-moving…

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…

Uncover novel antimicrobials with prospective health benefits for sea turtles.

Among Leiden’s Firsts was Hajjah Maria Ulfah Soebadio Sastrosatomo. In 1933, she was the first Indonesian woman student to earn a law degree.

Kazimierz Twardowski (1866-1938) is the founder of the Lvov-Warsaw School with its strong tradition in logic and its scientific approach to philosophy. Twardowski’s unique way of doing philosophy, his method, is of central importance for understanding his impact as a teacher.

This network brings together scholars whose work explores how contemporary frameworks of crisis produce experiences of the present, rehash or disrupt established narratives of the past, and broker specific outlooks on the future. We collaborate in studying these crisis-scapes and exploring how they…

Macromolecular Biochemistry is a section of the Leiden Institute of Chemistry at Leiden University, comprising the PIs Marcellus Ubbink, Remus Dame, Lars Jeuken, Anne Wentink, Sebastian Geibel, Anjali Pandit, René Olsthoorn, Alia, and Steffen Brünle.

Tuberculosis causes 1.5 million deaths yearly and anti-tuberculosis therapies are threatened by emergence of drug resistance. Development of innovative drug combinations should be accelerated with the use of translational pharmacological models. Moreover, host-directed therapies (HDT), which stimulate…

Parasitic worms and stomach bacteria suppress immune reactions such as allergic responses. Parasitologist Hermelijn Smits and lung specialist Christian Taube from the LUMC are trying to learn from these micro-organisms.

The Quantitative Pharmacology group headed by Coen van Hasselt focusses on the application of state-of-the-art quantitative pharmacometrics and systems pharmacology modeling combined with translational experimental models to develop personalized treatment strategies for antibiotics and to combat antimicrobial…

How do plants lure microscopically small 'support teams' into their roots for protection against diseases? And what functions are activated in the microbes and the plants?

This section features online articles by or about the team members of the Food Citizens? project.

Supervisor: P.J.J. Hooykaas

Aspergillus niger is an important industrial producer of organic acids and enzymes producing large amounts of spent fungal biomass.

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.

Antibiotic resistance, caused by widespread use of antibiotics, leads to bacterial infections that are difficult, if not impossible, to treat and is a major worldwide health concern.

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The focus of the Antiviral Pharmacology group led by Anne-Grete Märtson is optimizing antiviral therapy for different viral infections by conducting clinical trials and using innovative computational and dynamic laboratory methodologies.

Corporeality, intimately bound to the notion of space, to the diffuse border that connects, entangles, and fuses an inside and an outside, is understood in this book as a space which puts the individual at stake as a war machine that, in its fight for a form of life, redefines political territories.

Barbarism: from the 18th century to the present.