As Professor of Translational Neuro-oncology, Marike Broekman researches how brain tumour treatment can be improved. She will discuss this in her inaugural lecture along with her work as a neurosurgeon and the importance of a positive workplace culture.

Alex Brandsen and Wouter Verschoof-van der Vaart, PhD candidates in the Digital Archaeology research group and the Data Science Research Programme, have been awarded a 444 grant by Young Academy Leiden. They are going to use it to hold a session in Oxford on improving collaboration between researchers…

This thesis describes the development and optimization of the first molecular tools to study the enzyme PLA2G4E.

Before the large scale use of renewable energy sources can be implemented in our society, the storage of electrical energy needs to be tackled. Storage the energy as hydrogen via the reduction of protons is a good option.

From 2020 to 2023, Professor Miguel John Versluys and his research group will participate in an international consortium co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union in the framework of the international project “Alexandria: (Re)activating Common Urban Imaginaries”. This ERC project…

Exoplanets close in to their host star receive high levels of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) irradiation, capable of heating and ultimately driving the hydrodynamic escape of their atmospheres.

The chemical synthesis of inhibitors and probes targeting endo-glycosidases.

Boundaries in the collaboration between private and public interests are more blurred in the US than Europe, says Reijer Passchier, Professor of Digitalisation and the Democratic Constitutional State at the Open University and Assistant Professor in Constitutional Law in Leiden, in ‘de Volkskrant’.

The Executive Board of Leiden University has asked the University Council to advise on its proposed decision to reactivate the person counters/sensors in due course. The Council will now look at this carefully before the Board makes a final decision. The advice of the University’s participation body…

Didactics

Every year the newly arriving Archaeology students are invited to join an active introduction day during which they get to know the Faculty and each other in a playful and fun way. The activities are organised by Study Adviser Cleody van der Eijk. ‘It helps people to loosen up and get to know each o…

Neuraminidases are enzymes that cleave glycosidic linkages of sialic acid. These enzymes are involved in influenza infections as well as in many cellular processes in mammals and micro-organisms.

Conference

An Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) is a highly luminous region at the center of a galaxy, powered by the accretion into a supermassive black hole and emitting energy from radio waves to gamma rays, often outshining the host galaxy.

This thesis describes how to scale down concepts of macroscopic mechanical metamaterials to the thermal scale using a system of flexibly-linked colloids.

The overarching goal of this thesis is to set the foundations, but also make the first essential steps towards establishing a comprehensive, mesoscopic, hydrodynamic theory of epithelial tissues. The stage is set by an exhaustive study of topological defects in passive p-atic liquid crystals, singularities…

We talk too little about silence, thinks university lecturer Gerlov van Engelenhoven. He has been awarded a Veni grant to investigate the role of silence in protest movements. Does silence sometimes really say more than a thousand words?

Andrew DJ Shield (History) and Ann Marie Wilson (Leiden University College) have been awarded a seed grant for their project, “Transnational Gay/Lesbian Activism since the 1960s.” Granted: €3000.

To this day, all cyclophellitol-based inhibitors and ABPs have been close analogues of their natural substrate counterparts. As a result, these probes showed high selectivity towards their target glycosidases.

This thesis describes the synthesis and biochemical evaluation of a variety of cyclophellitol based activity-based probes and inhibitors targeting various endo- and exo-acting retaining glycosidases. In the last two decades a variety of probes and inhibitors for (hemi)cellulose degrading enzymes have…

Archaeologist Annelou van Gijn received an NWO Archeologie Telt grant to investigate domestic craft and subsistence activities of late Neolithic peoples in the coastal area of the Netherlands

Between 18 and 20 October, CEPS (Centre for European Policy Studies) and the Migration Policy Centre of the European University Institute organized the ASILE training school for PhD researchers. The training focused on the concepts of responsibility attribution and accountability for fundamental rights…

What if particles don’t slow down in a crowd, but move faster? Physicists from Leiden worked together and discovered a new state of matter, where particles pass on energy through collisions and create more movement when packed closely together.

450 years

Arts and culture

In this thesis, a system pharmacology approach, integrating metabolomics, pharmacology and chemical biology, was applied to understand and modulate the endocannabinoid system across different model systems (cells, zebrafish, mice and humans).

Vitamin A or retinol is essential in embryonic development, the visual cycle and the immune system.

A multi-disciplinary approach to past lifestyles and cultural practices

Less than 1 in 10 drug candidates that enter phase 1 clinical trials actually gets approved for human use.

Large parts of the research described in this Thesis aims at the development of oligopeptide-masked toxins and their in situ immunoproteasome-mediated activation.

Annual PhD training

Investigating Neolithic houses in Britain through microwear and residue analysis of stone tools

This thesis describes the synthesis, analysis of various tetrazine bearing compounds and use in bioorthogonal chemistry.

Synthesis and application of chemical biology tools to study immunomodulatory signaling lipids.

The recently introduced nature-originated deep eutectic solvents, so-called natural deep eutectic solvents (NADES) are considered as truly green solvents, which composed of natural ingredients found abundantly in organisms.

Synthetic microswimmers take an important place within the interdisciplinary field of active soft matter.

PhD candidate Ludwig Hoffmann will spend two years at Harvard University in the US thanks to a Rubicon grant he won on April 11. Using theoretical models he studies biological tissues, for example during morphogenesis. This is the process that causes tissue or organisms to develop their shape. ‘This…

This thesis focuses on the design and synthesis of activity-based probes and inhibitors targeting enzymes involved in the degradation of specific plant glycans.

Leiden academics Remco Breuker and Auke-Florian Hiemstra stand to win the title of Person of the Year.

Veel mensen denken dat zware metalen giftig zijn en mens en natuur altijd schade aanbrengen. Dat beeld moet genuanceerd worden, vindt hoogleraar Sylvestre Bonnet.