On 15 January, the winner of the famed LION Image Award will be announced. Submissions ranged from the famous 3d printed microboat to an eerily abstract graph depicting a Majorana fermion.

How did early humans use their hands, and what can that tell us about our shared past? Cora Leder, newly awarded recipient of the NWO PhD in the Humanities grant, is set to find out.

In donut-shaped buildings, particle accelerators take super-detailed X-ray images. Yet those images are not good enough to learn how to drive on hydrogen for example. Mathematics PhD student Allard Hendriksen has developed an algorithm that improves the images without having to learn from data from…

Leiden astronomers and ecologists are developing an instrument that lets people measure the quality of surface water with a smartphone.This international citizen science project, MONOCLE, is a collaboration between scientists and local people in Tanzania, Brazil and four European countries.

Amidst the lathes and welding machines of the Fine Mechanics Department, Emiel Wiegers is working concentratedly on a metal cylinder. He and his colleagues design and construct components for researchers' set-ups. ‘We are a bunch of inventors who enjoy helping the researchers in our Faculty.’

This is an incomplete list of scientific publications by students and staff of the Creative Intelligence & Technology MSc programme.

On Friday May 3rd 2013 NWO has announced that Dr. Mario van der Stelt, Division of Bio-Organic Synthesis (LIC) and Dr. Laura Heitman, Division of Medicinal Chemistry (LACDR), have been awarded with an ECHO-STIP grant for their project, entitled: “Novel target engagement biomarkers for better drug ca…

On 3 and 4 June 2015 a delegation from the biotechnology and biomedicine center in Prague (BIOCEV) visited the Faculty of Science in Leiden, as well as the Netherlands Centre for Electron Microscopy (NeCEN). The delegation was interested to see the potential for collaboration in the field of cryo transmission…

Two Leiden University research consortia have received funding from the High Tech Systems and Materials programme (HTSM).

The first full-colour images of the cosmos from ESA's space telescope Euclid were presented today. Never before has a telescope been able to take such crystal-clear astronomical images of such a large part of the sky and so far into the deep universe. The five images illustrate Euclid's full potential;…

To mark Leiden University’s 450th anniversary, this exhibition pairs historic photographs with contemporary research. Seven ‘Then & Now’ diptychs show how the Institute of Physics blends a rich past with cutting‑edge science.

Chemist Roxanne Kieltyka has received an ERC Starting Grant of 2 million euros. In her lab, she creates gels that mimic the instructive material that supports cells in our body. With the grant, she aims to make these gels stiff and tough, and to create a bio-printed miniature heart ventricle.

Tracking mucus-eating bacteria, mapping the complexity of planetary nebulae and a signalling pathway in cancer. These three Leiden projects have been awarded Open Competition Science-M funding by the Dutch Research Council.

An overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2021, as well as special appointments at Leiden University and other institutions.

On this page you will find an overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2025, as well as special appointments at Leiden University and other institutions.

Cleveringa Lecture

PhD defence

PhD defence

PhD defence

PhD defence

PhD defence

PhD defence

Lecture

PhD defence

PhD defence

Tuberculosis bacteria survive by hiding in our immune cells. In her PhD research, biologist Salomé Muñoz Sánchez explores how boosting the body’s own defenses might outsmart this deadly pathogen. Her work reveals two key proteins that help immune cells destroy the bacteria.

A team led by Erik Danen from the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research has received a 3 million euros NWO Science Groot grant to unravel the first steps of metastasis. Danen will work together with biologists and theoretical and experimental physicists from Dutch Universities. ‘Understanding these…

Lecture

The Phase 3 clinical trial results of the promising Covid-19 vaccine of Johnson & Johnson are expected this month. The Dutch electron microscopy facility NeCEN helped develop the company’s vaccine, and they have now published their scientific findings in Nature Communications.

How does climate change affect the migration routes of birds? Mainly negatively, according to a new study from Yali Si from the CML. ‘It changes the timing of natural events differently in each region,’ she explains. ‘This can lead to a growing mismatch between the availability of food and the supposed…

According to a new study, for half of the world population the answer would be yes. For the other half: maybe? Leiden environmental researcher and head author Nicolas Navarre explains: ‘With improvements to crop yields, reductions in food waste, and changes in consumption patterns, 90% of people could…

How are supermassive black holes born? That is the question astronomer Elena Maria Rossi is trying to answer. But how do you investigate something you cannot see?

Every week, Uwe Hensch walks past the Old Observatory in Leiden. In corona times, he decided to make a LEGO design of the historic building. His design is now finished and might go into production. You can help to make it happen.

Three projects with Leiden researchers are to receive a subsidy from NWO for the construction or renovation of large-scale research facilities. They will be working on electron microscopy, an X-omics initiative and an X-ray telescope. The projects are part of the National Roadmap for Large-Scale Scientific…

In this blog post, authors Corneliu Bjola, Jennifer Cassidy and Ilan Manor discuss their article for the Special Issues on Debating Public Diplomacy: Now and Next (Vol. 14, 1-2).

A team of Leiden astronomers used the latest set of data from ESA’s Gaia mission to look for high-velocity stars being kicked out of the Milky Way, but were surprised to find stars instead sprinting inwards – perhaps from another galaxy.

In spring 2020, the country was facing a potential lack of hospital ventilators for the huge numbers of Covid-19 patients. In response, Clinical Technology students designed an emergency device in the space of just three weeks. ’These students become 80% doctor and 80% engineer.’

The story of Tutankhamun, the Egyptian pharaoh, is world famous. But did you know that the Ancient Egyptians mummified not only people but animals too? The National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden recently put a bunch of animal mummies through a CT scanner. This was in collaboration with Canon Netherlands…

Ariane Briegel, Professor of Ultrastructural biology in Leiden, has received a prestigious incentive from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. With the grant of 800,000 euros, Briegel will set up a new research line into studying symbiotic interactions on the nanoscale.

For the first time, researchers were able to grow organoids from snake venom glands. The lab-grown 3-D structures can produce snake venom molecules. This is a major step in finding treatments to tackle snakebite, which causes over 100,000 deaths each year. Publication in top journal Cell.

Minute nanoparticles are bringing about a completely new industrial revolution. But little is known about the possible dangers to the food chain. An international group will be examining this issue, and Leiden researchers will be playing a key role.

PhD student Wen Yang discovered how certain cell receptors in E. coli bacteria signal 'smells'. With the use of ice-cold electron microscopy microbiologists from Leiden gain more insight into how bacteria respond to their environment. Publication in mBio.