In 2000, the Faculty of Science of Leiden University launched the BioScience Initiative (BSI). Its aim was to bring together those engaged in research in various disciplines, in order to stimulate interdisciplinary collaboration. This was mainly done by organising a monthly colloquium, the Leiden van Leeuwenhoek Lectures on BioScience. All invited speakers are highly qualified and at the forefront of their field, which in most cases is interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary.

Since 2012, the BSI has participated in the Leiden University Research Profile 'Health, Life and Biosciences', together with the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC).

The committee of the BSI comprises a chairman and a secretary. It has a Program Advisory Board consisting of a number of key contacts in the various institutes belonging to the Faculty of Science and the LUMC, including two PhD students. With their help, the committee draws up a standing list of potential speakers; the invitations are based on this advice. In this way, the lectures fit the current research in the Faculty of Science and the LUMC perfectly.

The speakers generally stay in Leiden for several days, giving them the opportunity to brainstorm with members of the various research groups within the Faculty of Science and LUMC, and to visit other universities and research institutes occasionally.

PhD students and students are encouraged to attend the lectures. Sometimes speakers are also requested to give a special presentation for students and to have discussions with them.

In 2010, the BSI felt that it was the moment to reach colleagues outside the Faculty of Science by attracting the interest of (apart from that of the LUMC) the Faculty of Social Sciences, the Technical University of Delft, and the Bioscience Park in Leiden, to become a BioScience Community.

February 21, 2019 - Jan-Willem Veening
Origins of antibiotic resistance

January 31, 2019 - Tjeerd Barf
Covalent inhibitor drugs: From serendipity to rational technology

November 29, 2018 - Steve Brown
How biological clocks drive sleep and napping

October 18, 2018 - Marta Miaczynska
How do cells integrate endocytic membrane trafficking and signal transduction?

September 27, 2018 - Ton Bisseling
The evolution of the nitrogen fixing root nodule symbiosis; how to live from air

June 28, 2018 - Marcel Tijsterman
On worms, transgenic plants, and breast cancer patients

April 19, 2018 - Beat Fierz
Revealing chromatin state organization on the single-molecule scale

March 22, 2018 - Jonathan Sherratt
Using mathematics and history to predict the future of semi-arid vegetation

February 22, 2018 - Nico Tillie
Synergetic Urban Landscape Planning - Urban metabolism and the use of city data in Rotterdam to plan for a city as a sustainable ecosystem

January 25, 2018 - Nathaniel Martin
Addressing Antibiotic Resistance: New Strategies for Targeting the Bacterial Cell Wall

November 30, 2017 - Donald Canfield
Breathing easy at night: Atmospheric oxygen and biological evolution

October 26, 2017 - Justin Nodwell
Chemical genetic dissection of an unusual animalcule

September 28, 2017 - Paul Hooykaas
Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, pathogenesis by trans-kingdom conjugation

June 29, 2017 - Alain Arneodo
The role of nucleosome positioning in genome function and evolution

May 18, 2017 - Andy Knoll
The Proterozoic Eon: Life and Environments in Earth's Middle Age

April 13, 2017 - Philip Ingham
From flies to fish to therapy

March 30, 2017 - Jonathan Sherratt
Using mathematics and history to predict the future of semi-arid vegetation

February 23, 2017 - Gene Block
Aging and the biological clock

January 26, 2017 - Neil Benson
The journey to the impactful application of mathematics in drug discovery

November 24, 2016 - Carole Goble
Reproducibility, Research Objects and FAIR data Realitiesj

October 27, 2016 - Alexandre Antonelli
South America: the world's largest evolutionary experiment

September 29, 2016 - Gijs Wuite
Frontiers in single molecule manipulation and imaging of DNA-protein transactions

June 30, 2016 - Kevin Gaston
Restructuring the ecological and evolutionary night

May 26, 2016 - Doyne Farmer
The Evolution of Technology

April 21, 2016 - Carl Johnson
As Time Glows By: Circadian Rhythms in Cyanobacteria from Molecules to Populations

March 31, 2016 - Vera van Noort
Sensing the environment throughout evolution

February 18, 2016 - Tecumseh Fitch
The biology and evolution of language: A comparative approach

January 28, 2016 - Gerry Wright
Resisting resistance

November 19, 2015 - Monika Heiner
From Petrinets to Partial Differential Equations - A Petrinet perspective on systems and synthetic biology

October 29, 2015 - Geert Kops
Split decisions: Molecular mechanisms for error-free chromosome segregation

September 24, 2015 - Johan van de Koppel
A multidisciplinary approach to pattern formation in ecosystems

June 25, 2015 - Douglas Lauffenburger
Multi-scale systems analysis of cell-cell communication and signaling in complex inflammatory disease