Leiden physicist Julia Cramer receives 50 thousand euros in funding for 'Let's talk about quantum', a research project on communication about quantum computing. A project for high school students by education expert Henk Buisman is also included in the NEWA ELSA funding.

Quantum annealing belongs to a family of quantum optimization algorithms designed to solve combinatorial optimization problems using programmable quantum hardware. In this thesis, various methods are developed and tested to understand how to formulate combinatorial optimization problems for quantum…

We perform multidisciplinary research at molecular, cellular, and organismal levels of animal biology to increase fundamental understanding of health and disease.

Four female computer scientists share a common goal: to showcase the significant contributions of women in computer science and inspire their students. Together, they are organising this year’s Alice & Eve event, a one-day symposium dedicated to celebrating women in computer science. The event, scheduled…

We are living in an information era where the amount of image and video data increases exponentially.

Ariane Briegel has been appointed Professor in the fìeld of Ultrastructural Biology within the Faculty of Science at the Institute of Biology from the 1st of December 2015. Her expertise is in using electron cryotomography to study how microbes sense and respond to their environment.

Developing a new way to measure marine biodiversity at high resolution, by listening to it.

Promotor: H.S. Overkleeft, Co-Promotor: B.I. Florea

We use DNA strands to stabilize few-atom silver clusters, which show unique optical and chemical properties. This thesis involves the study of these constructs for various applications.

The standard approach to build a quantum computer with Majoranas as building blocks is to convert them into qubits. However, a promising application of quantum computing—quantum chemistry—would require these qubits to be converted again into so-called fermions. Physicists from Leiden and Delft suggest…

The race to build the first quantum computer is still ongoing, but Morten Bakker has made big step forward in that process with qubits. A qubit is a unit of quantum information that can be produced in large numbers on chips. Qubits capable of exchanging photons (light particles) could be used in the…

Researchers found a way to run programmes that should be impossible to carry out on an imperfect quantum computer. Such programmes are very computationally demanding and the quantum computers that currently exist are not yet up to that task. Unless you use a clever trick, Simon Marshall and Vedran Dunjko…

Vedran Dunjko appointed to full professor of quantum computing at Leiden University, the Netherlands.

Computer scientist Tim Coopmans uses pen, paper and regular computers to simulate the best possible quantum computer. He tells about his research and how this helps make a useful quantum computer a reality a little bit sooner. ‘I hope I will get to see quantum computers contributing something really…

ALICE is Leiden University's newest computing miracle. The computing cluster is a first step in the development of infrastructure for computational and data-intensive research that is accessible to everyone within Leiden University and the LUMC. This includes both experienced users of high-performance…

Top scientists of three Dutch universities are working on software and systems for quantum computers. Researchers of the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) and the Leiden Institute of Physics (LION) are developing new algorithms to make those super computers work. The coming years,…

‘It was not always accepted, but I just wanted to be a researcher. Now, I am as happy as can be.’ It is one of the quotes from the International Women’s Day presentation for Biology students. Seven women, working as researchers and teachers at the CML, IBL, and Naturalis, shared their experiences with…

Without electronics carrying out computational tasks our daily lives would look very different. Devices such as elevators, vending machines, turnstiles, washing machines and even traffic lights use a simple form of electronic computing to switch from state to state. But, what if power supply is not…

A Vici grant and a Science-GROOT: scientists from the Institute of Biology Leiden have been awarded prestigious grants from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). From investigating bacteria without cell walls to harnessing plants with the help of microorganisms.

Biology is one of the four top educational programs at Leiden University according to the national “Guide to Universities” (Keuzegids Universiteiten).

Kan een computer in de rechtszaal net zo goed uitspraak doen als een rechter? Hoogleraar Recht en informatica Jaap van den Herik vindt volmondig van wel. Hij legt het uit in een college van de Universiteit van Nederland.

At the moment, over 350.000 chemicals are registered worldwide for production and use. Their application, however, may harm human health and the environment.

The LIACS Media Lab has received a research grant from the worldwide leading graphics hardware company NVIDIA. The grant exists of newly developed hardware utilizing thousands of processors. LIACS researchers will use it to investigate deep learning in understanding imagery from sources such as MRI…

On Monday the 8th of December, the annual symposium of the IBL will be organized at the main building of the LUMC Leiden. This year’s theme is “Integrative Biology towards Healthy Communities”.

Gijs van der Velden has one of the best study results in his first college year of all science studies. With that, he won the Young Talent Incentive award and received 500 euros of the Koninklijke Hollandse Maatschappij der Wetenschappen (KHMW). The biology student remains quite nonchalantly. ‘Of course,…

This thesis deals with the use of sound in interactions in the context of participatory systems and data sonification. We investigate an interactive environment where participants perceive information of the data through sound elements.

What are the characteristics of impactful education for student application of inclusive design principles in design and technology programs?

Develop a prototype combined chemical-microbial enzymatical process for the sustainable, green recycling and revalorization of polyamides and polystyrene

Can furan-based resisn be degraded by microbial enzymes in combination with mild pre-treatment?

Striga hermonthica, commonly known as witchweed, infests major cereal crops in Sub-Saharan Africa causing severe yield losses and threatening the livelihood of millions of resource poor farmers.

Biologists today have to be able to work with big data. Data analysis skills should be taught from the start of the degree programme, or - even better - in secondary school. This is the message of Vera van Noort, new Professor of Computational Biology. Inaugural lecture 22 January.

Whether a microbe is beneficial or harmful to a plant can now be predicted with high accuracy thanks to bacLIFE. This bioinformatic tool with an intuitive interface makes it much easier to unlock the secrets of bacterial genomes. A group of Leiden biologists presented it in Nature Communications.

The most commonly used method for the taxonomic identification of tree trunks is wood anatomy. The number of experts in this area is decreasing, and education to become an wood anatomists takes many years. With the help of technology computer scientists of the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science…

All the data stored and processed by our computers is encoded as sequences of zeros and ones, called bits. Quantum computers offer an alternative to this traditional way of encoding and manipulating information.

Promotor: J.N. Kok, Co-promotor: H.J. Hoogeboom

On November 8, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) named Wessel Kraaij as one of the 2017 Distinguished Members. ACM Distinguished Members have made a significant contribution to the field of computing, computer science or information technology. This year, worldwide 43 scientists received…

How do humans control their thoughts and actions, and what can high-field brain scanning reveal about the underlying processes?

PhD defence

150 new Biology students have arrived in Leiden. This is more than ever and we seem to settle among the big three Universities for Biology in the Netherlands.

On Thursday the 24th of November, Tseard Hoekstra and Jeroen Ververs (members of the delegation Holland Rijnland), Geert de Snoo (Dean Faculty of Science), Martina Vijver (CML), Herman Spaink (Scientific Director IBL) and Klaas Vrieling (IBL) explored possibilities for collaborations between companies…

The European Union has invested ten million euros in the so-called iNEXT-Discovery consortium. The goal of this new consortium is to enable European researchers to extend innovative structural biology research. The Netherlands Centre for Electron Nanoscopy (NeCEN) is also part of iNEXT-Disovery, which…

With defending his thesis ‘Applications of topology to Weyl semimetals and quantum computing’, the Leiden theoretical physicist Tom O'Brien has gained the rare 'cum laude' qualification. The freshly minted PhD has started a five year research programme on quantum algorithms for quantum chemistry, funded…