The work in this thesis describes the fundamental role of Lkb1 as a conductor of metabolism-related processes in zebrafish larvae.

With cancer, the immune system is a double-edged sword: it can attack tumour cells, but can also help them grow and spread. It is a question of harnessing it. This is what Professor Karin de Visser argued in her inaugural lecture on 15 November 2019.

The December issue of the CML Rev., Vol. 53 No. 6, is now available online.

What consequences does Brexit have for the protection of personal data?

Researchers at Leiden University have demonstrated that tumours can apply mechanical means to attract the blood vessels they need to be able to grow. The team published this discovery on 2 March in Nature Scientific Reports.

With Brexit looming, stronger economic governance of the European Union is more essential than ever. It’s high time for action, says Amy Verdun, Professor of European Politics and Political Economy. Inaugural speech on 27 September.

Valedictory lecture

Strengthening a cancer patient's own immune system so that the body itself can better destroy cancer cells. This is at the heart of immunotherapy, the most promising progress in cancer treatment in recent years. In order to drive this development further, the Netherlands Cancer Institute-Antoni van…

What has European integration meant for the role and powers of Heads of State? And what should it mean, both at the EU and at the national level?

Research groups in the Biological & Soft Matter Programme unravel mechanisms in biological processes and develop novel bio-inspired soft materials.

Professor Christa Tobler and Jacques Beglinger have written two new publications.

Leiden chemists, together with colleagues at the University of York (UK) and Technion (Israel) have discovered a small, sugar-like molecule that maintains the integrity of tissue around a tumour during cancer. This molecule prevents tumour cells from spreading from the primary cancer site to colonise…

Promotores: Prof.dr. P.C.W. Hogendoorn & Prof.dr. H.P. Spaink, Co-promotor: Dr. B.E. Snaar-Jagalska

In the research programme Drug Discovery & Safety, we are interested in the efficacy and safety of new drugs and novel means to decipher these aspects. Hence, we employ advanced imaging and high-throughput screening techniques next to computational approaches such as chem- and bioinformatics.

Dr. Leila Akkari has been appointed professor by special appointment at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC) as per 15 December 2025. Her chair, entitled Cancer-Immune Interactions, has been established by the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI), where Dr. Akkari works as a researcher.

PhD student Janine Westendorp and her colleagues conducted literature research on what patients with cancer and their loved ones perceive as harmful communication from healthcare providers. The results were published in the journal Psycho-Oncology and are released as a poster to distribute to healthcare…

The research within the Division of Cell Systems and Drug Safety, headed by Prof. Bob van de Water, is focused on novel therapeutic modalities and novel concepts in early drug discovery, in order to develop more effective and safer therapeutic strategies. We generate advanced cell and computational…

The Leiden Institute of Physics has been awarded three out of twelve available grants from the FOM Projectruimte. Principal Investigators Milan Allan, Stefan Semrau and Carlo Beenakker all receive around 400,000 euro for their research.

Nausea, neurologic pain and hair loss: some of the severe side effects of chemotherapy. Not necessary, biochemist Liyan Zhang showed. Together with Leiden biologists and others, she achieved great results with a drug that is only active in combination with light. Zhang will defend her PhD on 4 July.

The Jean Monnet EU Research Seminar Series aims at engaging a wider community of EU scholars at the University and bring excellent academics to Leiden, at various stages of their careers, to present their cutting-edge research and stimulate debate at a highest academic level.

A month ago it was Marc Baggelaar, and now Hans Kistemaker too has obtained his PhD cum laude at the Leiden Institute for Chemistry (LIC). ‘He has made ground-breaking contributions to the world of protein modification,’ says PhD supervisor Gijs van der Marel. Kistemaker obtained his PhD on 11 May…

Chemotherapy that does nothing until you irradiate it with light. Sylvestre Bonnet receives a Vici grant of 1.5 million euros for the development of this treatment. The Leiden chemist wants to build a new molecule to fight tumours that are at the time still difficult to treat.

Leiden has a long history in the treatment of blood cell cancer. Research to find better therapies never stands still. One of the potential treatments currently being worked on is a ‘living medicine’.

On Friday 3rd June, the Europa Institute hosted a Leiden Law Exchange (LLX) on the British referendum on membership of the European Union. In a roundtable discussion, academics, policy makers and other experts engaged in a lively debate on the legal and political implications of a ‘Brexit’ or a ‘Bremain’…

The headline of the Financial Times on 5 May – 'Northern Ireland tensions threaten to derail Brexit long-term EU-UK deal' – was greeted as a blast from the past. This blast from the past led to the EU requesting to set up an office in Northern Ireland. Joris Larik, Assistant Professor at Leiden University…

A team led by Erik Danen from the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research has received a 3 million euros NWO Science Groot grant to unravel the first steps of metastasis. Danen will work together with biologists and theoretical and experimental physicists from Dutch Universities. ‘Understanding these…

Doctors should work with patients with bone and soft-tissue tumours to find the best personal treatment strategy says Prof. Michiel den de Sande. He has developed an app that helps choose the right treatment. Van de Sande was appointed Professor of Orthopaedics with a particular focus on paediatric…

Lecture

Treatment and care for cancer patients is becoming increasingly advanced. For example, surgeons can now perform operations with much greater precision, and therapeutic vaccines are being developed to prompt the patient’s immune system to fight cancer. Work is also being done on better early diagnostics,…

Key publications of the Cancer Drug Target Discovery group

Discovery of metastasis promoting candidate drug targets

An overview of the research at the Cancer Dug Target Discovery group.

Find out about the effects of Brexit on contracts and supplies.

This book discusses theories of crisis management and the radical right, to shed light on how responses to crisis influence radical right parties in their presence, discourse, and evolution. The book offers a comparative perspective by examining case studies with various traditions of radical right…

Lecture, CHEI Seminar

On 21 April 2021, Armin Cuyvers lectured students and staff of the University of Nairobi on EU law and comparative regional integration.

On 6 June, Armin Cuyvers lectured students and staff of the University of Nairobi on EU law and comparative regional integration

PhD defence

More and more medicines are becoming available that target a tumour’s specific traits. The use of chemotherapy is continually undergoing improvement.

Pathways of toxicity

Teaching is a vital part of CompaRe’s activities. Both in Leiden and abroad, our aim is to educate the minds that will redesign and drive forward the regional integration of tomorrow. We do so by offering multiple courses on comparative regional integration in Leiden, the creation of a MOOC on comparative…

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

What is the most effective way to eliminate tumour cells? The DNA repair mechanism could play an important role in increasing the effectiveness of chemotherapy in the fight against cancerous cells. If we are to influence this mechanism, we need fundamental knowledge about how the mechanism works.

PhD defence

The research conducted at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research is clustered within the divisions of BioTherapeutics, Cell Systems and Drug Safety, Medicinal Chemistry and Systems Pharmacology and Pharmacy, and the Metabolomics and Analytics Centre.

Coordination chemistry is the chemistry of metal atoms

Providing each cancer patient with the right treatment remains a challenge. Oncode Accelerator aims to change this by innovating the way we develop cancer treatments, thus ensuring the patient is at the heart of the process. Leiden University, the LUMC and other partners will implement this new way…