Psychology students do not always feel sufficiently prepared for the responsibilities expected of them later in their studies. That is why they are now increasingly encouraged to learn autonomously at each course level. And that can be quite challenging, even for teachers.

Preventing or delaying disease often requires lifestyle changes, which turns out to be difficult. Valentijn Visch and Sandra van Dijk are researching how to help people change their behaviour.

Prof. Hanneke Hulst has been appointed Scientific Director of the Institute of Psychology by the Board of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. She will start on 1 February 2024 for a period of 3 years, succeeding Andrea Evers and interim director Serge Rombouts.

Cancer immunotherapy represents a significant breakthrough in cancer treatment. However, tumors have numerous mechanisms by which they evade destruction by the immune system. It is therefore necessary to decipher and reverse these mechanisms in order to improve immunotherapies.

Two Leiden research projects that focus on increasing the biodiversity of Dutch production systems for food and ornamental horticulture have started thanks to funding from the Dutch Research Council's KIC research programme.

The research project of Jos Raaijmakers is nominated for the Huibregtsenprijs 2022. The researcher of NIOO, with a guest appointment at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), is one of six nominees. On the Evening of Science & Society (Dutch: Avond van Wetenschap & Maatschappij), 10 October 2022, the…

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

Sixteen researchers at Leiden University are to receive a Veni grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). These awards offer promising young researchers the opportunity to further develop their own ideas over a period of three years.

A delegation from Leiden University recently embarked on a knowledge mission to various NGOs, universities and government organisations in Indonesia. New partnerships were formed and important knowledge exchanged, and researchers from Leiden gave guest lectures.

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…

Skåne University Hospital, Lund University and Leiden University Medical Center will work together to expand their research, teaching and development relating to Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products. That is the essence of a Memorandum of Understanding signed at SciLifeLab near Stockholm on Wednesday…

An impressive 12 researchers from Leiden University have been awarded an 800,000-euro grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This will enable them to develop their own line of research over the next five years.

Tuberculosis stands as one of the most lethal infectious diseases worldwide. A significant challenge in combatting tuberculosis lies in the emergence of antibiotic resistance triggered by genetic alterations, commonly known as mutations. These mutations can diminish the responsiveness to antibiotics,…

Before patients can take a pill, scientists often spend years in the lab developing and testing a candidate drug. That often includes experiments with laboratory animals. As head of the rodent facility, Ilze Bot and her colleagues ensure that these experiments are conducted in an ethically responsible…

Digital diagnostic tools should improve the diagnostic process of patients with musculoskeletal complaints, so that they can receive the right treatment more quickly.

If doctors could better estimate a patient's chances of survival, this would help in choosing a specific treatment. It would be particularly beneficial for the rare and malignant Ewing sarcoma, which mainly affects children and adolescents. Mathematics professor Marta Fiocco has been awarded a substantial…

Each year on the university’s birthday, children at primary schools in Leiden and The Hague have a lesson from a professor – about children’s rights and robots in surgery, for example. The children get to do activities. And ask questions: ‘How do you become a professor?’

How can we best treat infectious diseases in people with obesity? Hospital pharmacist and PhD researcher Koen van Rhee studied how obesity affects blood levels of two commonly used medicines. He also developed a method for pharmaceutical companies to test new drugs on this patient group.

One discovered that arteriosclerosis resembles an autoimmune disease, while the other developed a system to aid in the search for new medications. For these achievements, Marie Depuydt and Jurren de Groot were awarded the Krijn Rietveld Memorial Innovation Award on the evening of Tuesday 4 June.

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…

Hanneke Hulst explaines how she is trying to bridge the gap between science and health care. ‘For a neuroscientist to actually contribute to solutions for patients, you have to work across disciplines.’

Healthy lifestyle campaigns are often unsuccessful. It is hard to get people to eat healthily or do more exercise. Behavioural science expertise should be drawn on at a much earlier stage in policy development, say twelve behavioural scientists in a position paper. They will present the paper to Maarten…

On Friday 9 September, Jeanin van Hooft, Professor of Gastrointestinal and Liver Diseases, will deliver her inaugural lecture titled: 'The scope of connection'. She emphasises the value of collaboration and connection for scientific research. In addition, she pleads for more diversity; according to…

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…

One used 3D cell models to study colorectal cancer, while the other used machine learning for more efficient blood donation. For these achievements, Marieke Vinkenoog and Simon Christian Hansmann were awarded the Krijn Rietveld Memorial Innovation Award on Tuesday 2 September.

For her research into complex family problems, an assistant professor in Forensic Family and Youth Care Studies Sabine van der Asdonk has won the Gratama Science Prize 2021, a prize for talented young researchers from the universities of Leiden and Groningen. The jury praised Van der Asdonk’s excellent…

Sander van Kasteren only noticed some small, subtle changes since he was appointed professor on 1 May. Still, he has to get used to the idea, even though he had been working towards the professorship for a few years. ‘I don't quite see myself as a professor yet.'

Jildau Bouwman has been named as professor by special appointment of the chair ‘Remote Health Monitoring’ at Leiden University. The systems biologist and TNO Digital Health Innovation figurehead will investigate how digital solutions can contribute to better healthcare at home. ‘Home care is often more…

A new graphene-based method could make for faster, cheaper and more accurate DNA sequencing, say a group of Leiden physicists and chemists.

Fungi germinating in the lungs of patients. Doesn’t sound too nice, does it? Luckily, humans can deal with this normally, and we are able to clear the infection before anything comes to harm. However, in people with health issues, Aspergillosis can cause a lot of damage, especially if the fungus becomes…

For her bachelor’s thesis, Molecular Science and Technology student Madouc Bergers synthesized her own molecule that can inhibit the breakdown of sugars. Although most students do not even manage to make one building block, Madouc made three. Partly because of this, she has been nominated for the Science…

How to combine being a mom and a career-oriented researcher? As member of the RISE junior board, postdoc Monica Varela wants to set an example. ‘It’s not always easy, but I want to show young scientists that you can continue your career when having a child.'

In healthcare, gender and sex considerations are crucial because they affect individuals' health and disease differences. Yet, most algorithms deployed in the healthcare context lack close consideration of these aspects and do not account for bias detection. In their latest paper, Eduard Fosch-Villaronga,…

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…

Too expensive groceries, diseases suddenly breaking out: from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, hundreds of people documented the world around them in chronicles. A significant number of these texts have been digitised in recent years. Professor of Early Modern Dutch History and project leader…

Het onderzoeksproject heeft als doel ouders te helpen hun kleuters gezonde eetgewoonten aan te leren door het bevorderen van sensitieve voeding tijdens de fase wanneer peuters kieskeurig met eten worden.

PhD student Janine Westendorp and her colleagues conducted literature research on what patients with cancer and their loved ones perceive as harmful communication from healthcare providers. The results were published in the journal Psycho-Oncology and are released as a poster to distribute to healthcare…

Here we highlight the achievements of our latest PhD graduates, each of whom has made significant contributions to the advancement of the field of (bio)pharmaceutical sciences.

Bacteria whirl around in the mouths of most people, forming dental plaques and sometimes causing nasty gum infections. Treponema denticola might be a dangerous pathogen, but not much is known about this bacterium. It was up to Ariane Briegel and her research group to change that.

Student of International Studies Susanne Reitsma has a remarkable passion: water. In April 2015, she was elected vice president of the World Youth Parliament for Water, in which capacity she works for worldwide access to clean drinking water and sanitation. What does Suzanne find so special about water?…

Various Leiden researchers have been awarded a European grant to explore the commercial or societal potential of previous research.

The number of women in the Netherlands dying before, during or after childbirth has halved.

On 2 November, nine professors were simultaneously inaugurated as ‘Medical Delta Professor’ at Leiden University, LUMC, Delft University of Technology, Erasmus University and Erasmus MC. With an appointment at a minimum of two of these five academic institutions, they combine technology and healthcare…

In a world where bacteria are increasingly resistant to antibiotics, Emma van Groesen set out to find a solution. This month she obtained her PhD, after four years of research into new variants of the antibiotic vancomycin. With success.

Collaborating in drug discovery and health research was the goal of a visit to the Leiden Bio Science Park on 14 May by a Swedish delegation including His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustav of Sweden. The delegation visited Leiden University’s Faculty of Science.

A new treatment for atherosclerosis showed promising results in isolated cells but proved to be less effective in initial animal tests. Bachelor student Biopharmaceutical Sciences Willemijn van der Heijden aimed to understand why. She investigated whether the formation of a protein layer around the…

Six professors or associate professors from Leiden University have officially been appointed 'Medical Delta Professor'. Their inauguration took place at the Medical Delta Conference in Delft on 8 April.

Before researchers can develop targeted drugs, they need to know exactly how a disease works. Biochemist Bert Beerkens created molecules that allow them to find out. He used caffeine as the basis for new molecules that enable research into certain receptor proteins on cells.

Within the same species of butterfly many different wing patterns can occur. How is this possible? According to researchers Ben Wielstra and Emma Berdan, of the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), the answer lies within supergenes. A supergene is a part of a chromosome that contains many strongly linked…

Are quantum computers the scientific breakthrough of our time? In this podcast, Carlo Beenakker, Professor of Physics at Leiden University, explains quantum technology.