PhD defence

Leonie Vreeke is ready to start a new 5-year project to develop a stepwise treatment specific to very shy young children. Her proposal was granted by ZonMw with nearly € 600.000,-. A PhD student and a research assistant will be appointed to execute this project, together with societal partners such…

Researchers at Leiden University have created a unique model that mimics how disease develops after a dengue infection. This 'dengue-on-a-chip' model helps them study the virus more effectively. The timing is crucial, as climate change is causing dengue to spread worldwide.

The fact that scientists are increasingly better able to access molecular cell and tissue data also brings with it a new challenge: how can scientists find the information they need for research among the vast amount of data available?

Each year on or around International Women’s Day, the university hosts the Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture. You are welcome to attend − even if you wouldn't call yourself a feminist, says professor and organiser Nadine Akkerman. ‘You get the best discussions with a diverse audience.’

Does the university value teaching less than research? Can you advance in science without academic awards? Which scholars inspire you? Does the university pay enough attention to both your academic achievements and your personal well-being?

PhD defence

Leiden biologists have found a mutation in flour beetles that allows them to speed up their development. The study has been published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.

PhD defence

PhD defence

An incredible quantity of archaeological reports are stored in digital archives. If you want to search for information in them, you have to do this manually. And that is a real chore. Archaeologist Alex Brandsen has now used deep learning, a form of artificial intelligence, to develop a search engine…

PhD candidate Maia Casna was a guest on the new episode of the Wetenschappelijke Wezens podcast. In it, Maia discusses her research on urbanisation and respiratory diseases while uncovering the intricacies of studying the human past and bones.

Regardless of whether you work at a desk or in a lab, all workplaces have their risks. As your employer, the University aims to create a healthy workplace and to limit possible health risks. Here you will find the main risks and measures that we take to reduce them.

Regardless of whether you work at a desk or in a lab, all workplaces have their risks. As your employer, the University aims to create a healthy workplace and to limit possible health risks. Here you will find the main risks and measures that we take to reduce them.

Research

We are pleased to announce a call for papers for a workshop within the project 'Human Development and Its Outliers' on 26 and 27 March 2026 at Leiden University.

What effect did the lockdown have on young people? Leiden researchers started a study of this in the first year of the covid pandemic. They discovered an impact on the development of the brain areas involved in social behaviour. The researchers published their discovery in Scientific Reports at Nat…

Leiden University has designed a new Urban Development Plan for the Humanities Campus. This plan incorporates participation from the immediate environment (neighbours and nearby residents). The plan will be available for viewing at the Leiden city council offices from 22 December for six weeks.

We can all look back on a turbulent year, a year in which we rapidly switched to working – and learning – online. Because pandemic or not, many staff members have continued to work on their development. Last year the Learning & Development team developed a wide range of online courses and training,…

Nanoplastics can accumulate in developing hearts, according to a study by biologist Meiru Wang from Leiden University. Her research on chicken embryos sheds new light on how these tiny plastic particles pose a threat to our health.

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.

Organisation

Children in the Netherlands develop prejudices based on ethnicity at an early age. Ymke de Bruijn (27) came to this conclusion in her dissertation ‘Child Interethnic Prejudice in the Netherlands: Social Learning from Parents and Picture Books’. For her PhD project she took a closer look at the behaviours…

The development of the Faculty Strategic Plan (FSP) did not come to a standstill over the summer. We now have a draft version of the Plan that incorporates the feedback on the strategic objectives that we obtained from various meetings and bodies before the summer. The Research Directors and a number…

Is it a coincidence that three chemists from the same department have each independently received a ZonMw grant? 'No,' the researchers agree in unison. 'The role of chemistry in medical biology is becoming increasingly important, and we’ve worked hard to make this happen.'

As robotics advances in the field of emergency response, firefighting robots – or 'firebots' – offer promising improvements in safety and operational efficiency. However, to ensure these technologies truly benefit society, non-technological factors must be considered from the outset.

On 27 May 2025, the Executive Board decided to establish a Committee on Human Rights / Conflict Zones.

Genes predict whether you have a propensity for an illness but environmental factors often have the last word: nutrition, air pollution, lifestyle, stress. The exposome as both culprit and chance. Large-scale research is being carried out into this at Leiden. Thomas Hankemeier, Professor of Analytical…

Early diagnosis, new treatments, and personalised care: all of these are possible if we can better unlock the wealth of information hidden in health data. Unfortunately, this data is often poorly organised, difficult to access, and not interoperable. The new international Leiden Institute for FAIR and…

'It gave our team a big boost to hear that our work was valuable,' says medical chemist Elmer Maurits about the moment they won the Venture Challenge. With their company Iprotics, they want to develop a drug that can better treat patients with autoimmune diseases and blood cancers. 25,000 euros of prize…

The Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), the Danstem Institute from the University of Copenhagen and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne have received 300m euros from the Novo Nordisk foundation. The aim of this new international consortium is to bring stem-cell based therapies…

Education

Four university medical centres, including the LUMC, are joining forces to increase pandemic preparedness in the Netherlands.

Organisation

Researchers at Leiden University have been awarded a €4 million EU grant to develop climate-neutral fuels. With this money they will expand the broad research community that focuses on green energy. If we work together, we can make the rapid progress that is needed, says Prof. Huub de Groot, Professor…

PhD candidate Maia Casna received an Incentive Prize from the Dutch Association for Physical Anthropology (NVFA). She was rewarded this honor for her innovative research into respiratory diseases and her talent for presenting her results to both academic and general audiences. ‘It feels really nice…

Through its Demonstrator Projects, the Dutch Oncode Accelerator consortium provides grants for preclinical cancer therapy development. The first call for these projects is open until September 2025.

Good education starts with good educators. The university has taken various steps in recent years to help our teaching staff develop. But new teaching staff require particular attention, say staff who work on teacher professionalisation.

Leiden University is going to partner with the Asian Development Bank, a bank committed to regional development. President of the Executive Board Annetje Ottow signed a memorandum of understanding on this unique partnership in Manila on 27 April.