His article on ‘the War on Drugs’ in Colombia and the Philippines has been in the top five most downloaded articles of Oxford University Press for some time. Now, Assistant Professor Santino Regilme is to receive a NIAS grant to map out the global war on drugs.

Recently, we had the LACDR PhD Introductory course on Drug Research for starting PhD candidates. It was great to have this live event live in castle Oud Poelgeest, after two years of restrictions.

This week, we had the LACDR PhD Introductory course on Drug. This is always a great opportunity for starting PhD candidates to get to know LACDR, CHDR, the Clinical Pharmacology department of LUMC and the embedding of the institute in the BioSciencepark as a whole.

Salvador Santino Regilme received Honorable Mention for the 2022 Best Scholarly Article Award from the Sociology of Human Rights Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA). He won for his paper “Visions of Peace Amidst a Human Rights Crisis: War on Drugs in Colombia and the Philippines,”…

At the end of February, we had the PhD Introductory Course on Drug Research for starting PhD candidates from LACDR. This 3-days event took place at Castle Oud Poelgeest, a great location to be completely out of the work environment. We welcomed 30 PhD candidates, with whom we had an inspiring and…

Due to the corona pandemic and the uncertainty of the circumstances end of January 2022, is decided to postpone the LACDR PhD introductory course.

The PhD introductory course will take place on 30 May, 31 May and 1 June 2022 in castle Oud Poelgeest. We are very happy that it will be a live event (as it stands now).

Archaeologist Bjørn Peare Barthold suspected farmers in a doctorless 19th century Dutch village may have been self-medicating to manage pain and disease. By examining the skeletons' dental calculus this hypothesis could be tested. Science Magazine interviewed him about this new technique.

On Wednesday 16 June 2021, Karim Khan was sworn in at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Experts say this is no easy time to join the ICC.

Salvador Santino Regilme has been selected for a fellowship at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) in Amsterdam. From September 2022, he will spend 5 months at NIAS working on his research project titled 'The Normative Order of the Global War on Drugs'.

Developing new drugs is a difficult process. With the aid of artificial intelligence, Pharmaceutical scientist Xuhan Liu has developed methods that can help make drug design cheaper and faster. PhD defence on 15 February.

Debate, Roundtable

Oncode Investigator Mario van der Stelt and his colleagues have discovered a new potential drug that suppresses chemotherapy induced neuropathic pain.

On 4 May, Leiden University remembered the victims of the Second World War from our university community. Alumni, students and present and former staff of the University came together for this Hour of Remembrance.

Debate

These days we do not just have wars and civil wars – more of a global civil war, says Bashir Azizi, who received a PhD in April 2020 for his thesis on global citizenship. The second edition of his thesis was recently published.

On 10 May 1940, the Netherlands was taken completely by surprise by the attack of the German army. Wasn’t it? In his dissertation, Wouter Linmans debunks the idea that the Second World War took the Netherlands by surprise. ‘From 1935 onwards, all major political parties wanted to invest in the military.’…

There are more molecules that could conceivably be candidate drugs than there are stars in the universe. How can we ever efficiently identify those molecules? Professor of AI and Medicinal Chemistry, Gerard van Westen: ‘I’m going to use artificial intelligence as the co-pilot to make an automated search.’…

Polypeptide Therapeutic Solutions (PTS), a leader in the design, development and custom manufacturing of polyamino-acid based delivery systems for therapeutic drugs and the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) today announced a research collaboration to develop advanced drug delivery systems…

Library

Psychedelic drugs like magic mushrooms and LSD are embraced by some and seen as lethal by others. Cognitive psychologist Michiel van Elk delved into the world of psychedelic drugs and wrote a surprisingly sober book about them. ‘Without first-hand experience my story wouldn’t be complete.’

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.

War and peace studies. A topic that is more relevant than ever because of the war in Ukraine. In September, the MSc Crisis and Security Management (CSM) will start a new track: War and Peace Studies. CSM’s Programme Director, Ernst Dijxhoorn, discusses the new track, how it was created and what students…

The Dutch universities are shocked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and empathise with all those affected by this act of aggression. Leiden University also calls for solidarity with and support for all those affected by the war.

The impact of a ceasefire shifts over the course of a conflict, as conflict party leaders learn more about each other’s military and political aspirations and adapt their use of ceasefires accordingly. That’s the key message of the dissertation of Valerie Sticher, PhD-candidate at the Faculty of Governance…

The impact of war extends beyond destroyed buildings and torn families. In bilingual Ukraine, the ongoing war with Russia is a major driver for increasingly discarding the Russian language. What does this mean for the position of Russian in Ukraine?

Willem Jespers started his position as Assistant Professor in the group of Prof. G.J.P. van Westen on June 1st, a short introduction below:

On Wednesday 9 March, a Faculty meeting about the war in Ukraine was held for staff and students in the Lorentz Lecture Hall. By the time the meeting started at 17.00 hrs, the 220 available seats in the lecture hall had been filled mainly by large numbers of students.

Nerve pain is one of the most common side effects of chemotherapy. It is therefore one of the biggest reasons for cancer patients to stop treatment early. Darcy Reynolds worked on new drug candidates against this pain during her bachelor's thesis. She developed a new series of molecules that increase…

In an essay published in three prominent European newspapers, Professor Luuk van Middelaar takes a close look at Europe’s role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. ‘Europe shows plenty of political energy, but what is still lacking is strategic cool-headedness, in facing a nuclear power.’

According to Russian propaganda Ukrainians are Nazis and people from the West are Satanists. Egbert Fortuin thinks we should take this propaganda seriously.

Chemist Tobias Bauer discovered ways to improve drugs by encapsulating them. Packages with iron nanoparticles, for example, can stimulate immune cells. Bauer will receive his PhD on 9 June.

Professor Ian Lilley, the Faculty of Archaeology’s Willem Willems Chair in Archaeological Heritage, was invited by Her Excellency Mrs. Marion Derckx, Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Australia, to present the 2022 commemoration speech for Netherlands Memorial Day on May 4th at the Netherlands-Australia…

When Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February, normal life there came to a halt. To ensure that affected students and researchers can continue their studies and work, professor Ellen Rutten (UvA) and assistant professor Dorine Schellens (Leiden) set up an international mentor network.