Klara Beslmüller

Organisation, Social

A team of LACDR scientists from three different divisions (SPP, BT, MC) contributed to a book on "Substance P in Health and Disease," which will be published by Elsevier. The project was a collaboration with Hannover Medical School (Germany) and was coordinated by Alireza Mashaghi. Master students Ehsan…

Two Leiden researchers have been awarded ERC Proof of Concept grants. These grants, each worth EUR 150,000, will help the grantees in their efforts to bridge the gap from basic science to real-life applications

Various thought-provoking questions have been appearing online and in print adverts. They are part of a national university funds campaign in which the Leiden University Fund (LUF) is also participating. We wanted to find out more, so we called LUF Director, Lilian Visscher.

Rather than one key and one strong lock, biology often uses tens or hundreds of weaker links to bind parts together, such as cells membranes. This allows for selectivity and also reversibility: the binding can also be undone. Researchers first caught this phenomenon using spheres or colloids, and published…

How ethical is research involving humans and robots? And can research on artificial intelligence cause problems when it ends up in the wrong hands? In any research involving humans or their data, the ethics committee assesses where the issues are. Associate professor at LIACS Suzan Verberne chairs the…

What’s really happening in the space between the cells in your body? With the Collagen Canvas project, students from Leiden University invite you to explore this question by blending science with art. This interactive artwork immerses you in the dynamics of the extracellular matrix—the invisible structure…

A special type of mirror to reflect X-rays has more possible applications than space research. Targeted radiation therapy for cancer, for example. Next to his full-time job, physicist David Girou mapped out the possibilities. He will receive his PhD on 14 June.

A breakthrough from the PhD research of medical chemist Elmer Maurits may help patients with autoimmune diseases and blood cancer in the future. But bringing a discovery from the lab to the clinic is not so easily done. Thanks to NWO's Venture Challenge, Maurits and his team will receive ten weeks of…

Students gain practical experience while clients receive a solution to their software needs: the student software company LUdev hits two birds with one stone. ‘Through LUdev, students learn what else is involved in software development besides programming.’ Interested? You can now submit new projects…

On World DNA Day 25 April, Leiden University is pleased to focus the spotlight on Rosalind Franklin, whose name was given earlier this month to the Campus Square on the Leiden Bio Science Park. This square will now be known officially as the Rosalind Franklin Square.

On October 12th, the LACDR PhD-Postdoc event will be organized in castle Oud Poelgeest.

From medicines from snake venom to supercrops and the origin of words. Thirteen researchers from Leiden University will receive Open Competition XS grants from the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

PhD defence

Ten scientists from Leiden University will receive a Starting Grant from the European Research Council. This will allow them to launch their own project, form their own research team and implement their best ideas.

PhD defence

2,240 plant extracts from 1,299 different plant species of Dutch origin. That’s the collection of the Dutch Extract Library, which has recently been transferred to the Institute of Biology Leiden. To plant biologist and contact person for this library Pingtao Ding this is a true treasury. ‘To bring…

Fewer CO2 emissions, less airborne viral transmission, and a more sustainable form of food production: seven consortia of researchers and societal partners will put a budget of 32 million euros towards developing technological innovations. Important Leiden research on circular electronics by Prof. Dr.…

The guardian of our genome, the protein MutS, scans the DNA for spelling errors and makes sure they are corrected. An essential process for our health. Researchers at Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) have discovered precisely how this protein works by making MutS visible with cryo-electron microscopy.…

Smart drug carriers, uneven cosmic expansion, and solar energy storage in molecules. These are the topics of three newly awarded NWO-XS grants to researchers at the Faculty of Science.

Antibiotic resistance is an economic problem. Pharmaceutical companies cannot earn much from antibiotic research, so they do not invest in it. This makes it important that universities do so, says Ned Buijs.

Nearly 19,000 runners lined up at the start of Leiden Marathon on Sunday, among them students and staff from the university. For some this was their first race, for others a highlight of their year. This year, in celebration of our 450th anniversary, they ran in a special jubilee t-shirt.

Board members Annetje Ottow and Hester Bijl recently visited the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL, Faculty of Humanities) and the Mathematical Institute (MI, Faculty of Science). This was the start of a series of visits to institutes at our university. The focus is on talking to researchers…

On 15 April, our much-beloved and highly respected former colleague Dr Hans Brussee passed away from cancer. In January 2025, Hans began experiencing neck pain. Initially, it appeared to be a herniated disc, but sadly, the diagnosis was soon revised, and his condition proved untreatable. Hans was 77…

Understanding the behaviour of tiny droplets in our cells could aid the search for new treatments. A team of Leiden researchers has developed a groundbreaking method to study how these droplets transition from liquid to solid. This change plays a role in various diseases, including neurodegenerative…

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.

Sander van Kasteren (Professor of Molecular Immunology) makes the invisible visible. He will explain more in his inaugural lecture.

Microscopic swimmers such as bacteria do not always swim alone. There are advantages to exchanging information and cooperating. Stefania Ketzetzi and colleagues now show in Nature Communications that human-made microswimmers, too, can cooperate.

The antibiotic EVG7, developed in Leiden, has proven capable of fighting the dangerous gut bacterium C. difficile with only a minimal dose. What’s more, the bacterium is far less likely to return, a major issue with existing antibiotics. The research was published in Nature Communications.

Scientific Director of the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) Hubertus Irth: ‘We test substances and look for new concepts for treating disease.’

PhD candidate Daniël Gomon has developed statistical methods that could significantly improve research in fields like medicine and demography. ‘Mathematicians don’t like unrealistic assumptions,’ he says. Gomon will defend his PhD thesis on 19 June.

With the aid of physics and a minuscule magnet, researchers have discovered a new structure of telomeric DNA. Telomeres are sometimes seen as the key to living longer. They protect genes from damage but get a bit shorter each time a cell divides. If they become too short, the cell dies. The new discovery…

Leiden researchers, led by Sebastian Pomplun developed a new method to screen hundreds of thousands of molecules for drug discovery, using mass spectrometry instead of DNA tags. ‘We wanted to make drug discovery faster and more accessible.’

PhD defence

An impressive 22 research projects by Leiden researchers have been awarded Veni funding from the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

How do fats and enzymes in the brain contribute to multiple sclerosis? In his PhD research, Daan van der Vliet combined chemistry and neuroscience to gain new insights into how brain disorders develop.

Connecting as the magic word. Seeking new collaborations, presenting ourselves to the outside world with an open attitude and showing what we do. During the opening of the academic year on Tuesday afternoon, Dean Jasper Knoester emphasised that change and connection are necessary for the university…

The doctor suggests opting for a treatment that is better for the environment. How do patients react to this? Doctors and psychologists together discovered that this has little impact on patient confidence in the doctor.

What started as an idea during a social gathering led to an unexpected breakthrough in research on resistant bacteria. Biologists and chemists from Leiden developed a new substance that proves to be effective against bacteria resistant to antibiotics. They published their discovery in Nature Chemist…

Thanks to a clever research method, progress is being made in the quest for better tuberculosis medications. Within an American consortium that received a 30 million dollars grant, Leiden researcher Rob van Wijk plays a significant role. ‘The next breakthrough in tuberculosis research will come much…

Destroying proteins from the Golgi apparatus of the cell in a controlled manner. That is the focus of chemist Marta Artola’s pioneering research. By developing a groundbreaking technology to target specific proteins in the Golgi, Artola aims to unlock new ways for drug development. For this ambitious…

Patients with skin diseases such as eczema and psoriasis, sometimes spend a lifetime searching for the right medication. To help these patients faster and better, scientists across the country are joining forces. The Next Generation ImmunoDermatology (NGID) project, with LACDR professor Robert Rissmann…

Prof. Marcel Reinders is a data science specialist at Delft University of technology. Using smart algorithms, he searches for links in complex data. For example, he studies patterns in DNA that lead to aberrant cell behaviour. This knowledge will help detect serious diseases such as Alzheimer's and…