Accelerating the development of new cancer medicines by joining forces—that’s the mission of Oncode Accelerator, a Dutch consortium that recently welcomed three Leiden-based PhD candidates. Under the guidance of Gerard van Westen, Marc Boef, Remco van den Broek, and Lucina-May Nollen are exploring how…

Communication

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science at Leiden University. How is he doing, what exactly does he do and what does his day look like? In each newsletter, Jasper gives an insight into his life.

Hans van den Berg, CEO of Tata Steel NL, is in the eye of the storm. He continues to believe in connection, debate and knowledge that will make green steel possible.

Nusantara Capital Authority (OIKN), which is in charge of developing Indonesia’s new capital city entered a Memorandum of Understanding with Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities on 18 March on knowledge sharing and joint research.

The Schoof cabinet has presented its budget. As expected, higher education is facing severe cuts. In the coming period, the Executive Board will regularly look at the consequences of what it deems an irresponsible policy.

Which teacher knows best how to inspire their students? Carmen van den Bergh (Humanities), Egbert Koops (Law) and Arjan Louwen (Archaeology) have been nominated for the 2025 Leiden Teaching Prize.

A number of election debates will be taking place in the run-up to the municipal elections on 18 March 2026. Leiden University and its partners in The Hague are also organising several initiatives that give students and staff the chance to exchange ideas with local politicians about the city’s futur…

Last October, we organized our annual PhD-Postdoc event at Kasteel Oud-Poelgeest. An important part of the program was a speed dating session with LACDR alumni.

Webinar

Inaugural lecture

It often takes longer for women with heart problems to get the right diagnosis. In her Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture, Professor Hester den Ruijter will talk about how hormones influence the heart and the importance of medical research that focuses specifically on women.

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing, what exactly does he do and what does his day look like? In each newsletter, Jasper gives an insight into his life.

Turning beer waste into a useful, sustainable product. That was the mission of students from Leiden at the international BISC-E event. The biology students challenged themselves and won third place in the Dutch finals of this competition. For this, they used the simple formula: Grain + fungus = coas…

In supermarkets, consumers are drowning in a sea of sustainability labels. Confusing for them, but also farmers can't see the forest for the trees. Obtaining these labels demands an enormous amount of time and effort. Berent Baris is investigating ways to simplify this process, benefiting both farmers…

With the holidays just around the corner in this dark month of December, when we light candles as a symbol of warmth and hope, we would like to take a moment to reflect on this past year. We have accomplished a great deal together but the year has been difficult at times.

Have you considered including the Leiden University Fund in your will?

Working for a social client during your studies: this is what happens at Urban Studies. For the course Urban Studies in Practice, third-year students carry out projects for public clients, such as the municipality of The Hague.

Leiden University, together with the Open University and Universities of the Netherlands, will take up residence in the Spui building at Grote Marktstraat 48-50/Spui 3 in downtown The Hague from 2025. The partners signed the leases on 7 November.

Una Europa, an alliance of 11 top European universities, provides annual seed funding for new research and teaching projects. Assistant Professor Carmen van den Bergh applied for funding with her Flemish and Italian counterparts. Thanks to this funding and the support of Erasmus+, students can now take…

Recently, our respected and talented former colleague Bente Hilde Bakker passed away after a long and brave fight with illness. She received her mathematical training at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and also obtained her PhD there under the supervision of Jan Bouwe van den Berg and Robert van…

Twenty-one dedicated teachers were awarded their Senior Teaching Qualification (SKO) on 21 January. Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl congratulated them in a ceremony in the Academy Building with an extra celebratory touch as the milestone of the 100th SKO certificate was reached.

It was great to welcome so many people at the LACDR Spring symposium on the 4th of April 2023. The meeting started with an inspiring lecture of Dr. Mustafa Diken (Bioentech) on the evolution of mRNA vaccines. Afterwards, PhD speakers from LACDR, LIC and CHDR gave presentations on a wide range of pharma-related…

It was great to welcome so many colleagues at the LACDR Spring Symposium! After an inspiring lecture by Dr. Avinash Patel from Dewpoint Therapeutics, nine PhD speakers from LACDR, LIC, CHDR and LUMC-KFT gave presentations on a wide range of pharma-related topics. These speakers competed for first place.…

In November, 2023, we organized our annual PhD-Postdoc event with the topic ‘future career opportunities’. After an interactive presentation ‘be prepared for you career after your PhD/postdoc’ by Harry Linders, there was ample opportunity to meet LACDR alumni and career coaches.

Organisation

Rob van Wijk (LACDR, Leiden University) and Robin van den Biggelaar (LUCID, LUMC) have been awarded a €10,000 euro KIEM grant from Leiden University to start an interdisciplinary collaboration to investigate the potential of AMPK activation as an adjunctive therapy to enhance tuberculosis treatment.

This March, Jara Bouma, Cas van der Horst and Laura Heitman from the Division of Drug Discovery and Safety and Laura de Paus, Richard van den Berg, Anthe Janssen and Mario van der Stelt from the LIC joined forces to determine how some drugs can specifically target the cannabinoid CB2 receptor (CB2R)…

Organisation, Social