A new mathematical model may explain how body cells get their shapes and what makes them move within a tissue. The model provides fundamental knowledge for applications in tissue engineering, amongst other things. Publication in open-access journal iScience.

Maria Yazdanbakhsh, Professor of Parasitology at the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant of 2.5 million euros. She will investigate why people in Africa and Southeast Asia respond less to certain vaccines than Europeans. Her goal is to find a solution for…

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.

The Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) is a proud member of the NExt ApplicationS of Quantum Computing (NEASQC) consortium, which recently received an ERC H2020 grant to stimulate the state-of-the-art in industrial quantum computing. LIACS contributes research and development of new…

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.

With the lecture 'China and a complicated world', a lucky draw, and of course lots of food and drinks, the Faculty of Science celebrated the year of the dog. An international mix of staff and students took part in this third local edition of the lunar new year celebration.

Sugar excipients, needed to stabilize medicines, can be unsafe for patients due to an impurity discovered recently by Daniel Weinbuch. ‘The biopharmaceutical industry should now consider new excipient quality criteria for safer drug development,’ he says. PhD defence on 13 December.

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…

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.

Artificial intelligence can help doctors analyse images such as MRI scans. In future it may even be able to predict how a tumour will grow. And that is badly needed to relieve the pressure on healthcare workers.

At the opening of the LDE-BRIN Academy on 31 October, the Bosscha Medal was awarded to Professor Taniawati Supali from the Department of Parasitology at the University of Indonesia. She receives the medal for her outstanding contribution to science and her working style, which is characterised by collaboration,…

A highly refined drone camera that inspects the grape harvest or new microtechnology that can make painful biopsies redundant. Enthusiastic entrepreneurs presented their promising plans on 30 June in the HUBspot start-up centre.

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…

LACDR, the Leiden Institute for Drug Research, developed better tolerated excipients to prevent adverse effects related to the surface of nanosized drugs such as vaccines. LADCR professor of Biopharmacy Matthias Barz and Polypeptide Therapeutic Solutions (PTS) are collaborating to develop processes…

Bioprinters that enable scientists to engineer complex tissues and organs. It sounds like science-fiction, but not for the scientists of the Alireza Mashaghi lab at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research. The lab has recently been equipped with two state-of-the-art bioprinters: BioX and LumenX+.…

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.

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.

An international consortium of research groups is aiming to develop novel antibiotics against the tuberculosis bacteria and two other deadly bacteria. The European Union has awarded a total of 18 million euros to the RespiriTB and RespiriNTM projects. Researchers from the Leiden University Medical Centre…

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

Cristina Del Real, Assistant Professor in Cyber Crisis at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, participated in the presentation of the Office of Science and Technology (OficinaC) of the Spanish Congress of Deputies (the Spanish Parliament). She is an expert on cyber security, one of the four…

Online teaching has made it much easier for international students to join in our courses. The Leiden minor in Global Health, for instance. Students from Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and Malawi logged on and made a valuable contribution with their knowledge, about tropical diseases, for instance.

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…

A large multidisciplinary team of experts on ageing has secured over €8.5m for a major study of which factors and solutions promote healthy ageing and increase vitality. The LUMC and the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) are two of the centres involved in this national research projec…

The Faculty of Science forges new research collaborations with the Institut Teknologi Bandung in Indonesia in the fields of tropical diseases, e.g. tuberculosis and medical biotechnology.

The scientific world is under increasing pressure from all directions: the money that society invests has to show clear returns. ‘The best thing we can do is to go along with this development,' says Ivo de Nooijer, Director of Luris, Leiden University's valorisation institute.

Leiden University is partner of the Netherlands Centre for One Health (NCOH). This initiative brings together leading academic research institutes in the Netherlands in an open innovation network that responds to the theme: One Health. NCOH interviewed Doris van Bergeijk: PhD student of the project…

As a humanities researcher, it is not always easy to explain to other people why what you do is important. It is easy for people to see why searching a cure for cancer matters, but it is a bit harder to make clear why it is also important to study language, culture, and history. One of the things that…

Two research projects from Leiden University have been awarded funding within the NWO (Dutch Research Council) Open Competition Domain Science programme. This funding finances innovative, fundamental research of high quality within the domain of Exact and Natural Sciences.

On Friday 17 April Leiden Mayor Henri Lenferink will officially open the new Metabolomics Facility of Leiden University. The facility’s ultimate goal is to prevent disease and to improve health throughout the human lifespan.

As of 1 March 2018, Elizabeth (Liesbeth) de Lange has been appointed as Professor of Predictive pharmacology at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR). She is head of the research group Predictive Pharmacology and mainly aims at developing mathematical models that can predict the effect…

With a 'Kiem grant' of up to €10,000, Leiden University stimulates initiatives in research and education where diverse fields of study meet. This interdisciplinary approach helps solve complex issues.

It may be the best tradition of them all: on the university’s birthday, its professors go to primary schools to teach a special lesson. This year, 75 professors visited 44 local schools. ‘How does stress get into your body?’

The High Troughput Microscopy Dutch Flagship Node that includes the Leiden Cell Observatory Screening platform is now officially ratified as a Euro-BioImaging (EuBI) Node Candidate

Various companies in the plant biotech industry will test a recent Leiden discovery in their crops. The ‘Pol Theta’ technology is developed in Leiden and makes it possible to reduce undesired side effects during genome engineering of plants.

Is it possible to diagnose diseases using molecular switches? The new international consortium LogicLab will address this question. Leiden chemist Sylvestre Bonnet and Leiden pharmacologist Thomas Hankemeier are involved in the project. LogicLab will run for four years and will receive over 3.5 million…

Testing chemical substances without using animals. It seems a utopia, but a European team is going to develop a way to make this a reality. The RISK-HUNT3R project, led by Leiden professor Bob van de Water, received 23 million euros from the European Commission for this purpose. The project was launched…

According to the LUMC, patients experience 30% fewer serious side effects when medication doses are tailored to their DNA.

Researchers from the Institute of Biology Leiden have discovered how good intestinal bacteria regulate our innate immune system. This surprising discovery could make it possible to treat diseases related to inflammation, such as diabetes and colitis, with a cocktail of good bacteria. Publication in…

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.’

The Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) received no less than three awards during the Figon Dutch Medicine Days. Bas Goulooze won the PhD Prize for best PhD candidate, Natalia Ortiz Zacarías and Huub Sijben both received a poster prize. ‘Scientists must be able to communicate their research…

Since November 2019 Stephan Raaijmakers is Professor by special appointment of Communicative AI (Artificial Intelligence) at LUCL. Raaijmakers investigates how linguistics can help make Artificial Intelligence smarter.

Organs and tissues grown in the lab may in the future be able to cure people with organ failures. Micha Drukker, professor of Stem Cells, Developmental Biology and Technology for Innovative Drug Research, is convinced that the use of stem cells will make this possible. He will deliver his inaugural…

PhD defence

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

In the Phenomix Medical Delta Field Lab, which was officially opened on Thursday 9 July, scientists, healthcare institutions and businesses work together to develop innovative applications in the field of metabolomics. This research field makes it possible to determine which drugs will be effective…

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.

Leiden scientists are the main applicants for five projects that have been awarded a Science Groot grant of up to 3 million euros in the Science Domain. In addition, several Leiden scientists are involved in other projects that have been awarded funding.

Lecture

Bringing together institutes and research groups, how do you do that? The Faculty of Science set up a joint research theme and financed three PhD positions. After four years, the profiling programme Endocannabinoids expires. ‘It really brought us together, and the collaborations remain.’