Modified viruses can both kill cancer cells and activate the immune system. This is what an LUMC team discovered while researching a new prostate cancer therapy.

On 16 May 2022, Professor Michel Wouters from the Department of Biomedical Data Sciences at the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), will deliver his inaugural lecture titled ‘Quality of Cancer Care: why the real world matters’. Wouters will use the opportunity to describe how quality registries…

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.

CADS lecturer Sander Hölsgens is one of the initiators of the NWO Smart Culture Project Documenting Complexity (project number CISC.KC.212). This project investigates how and why engaged documentary filmmakers use new technologies in their work. One of the outputs of this project is the series ‘In Whose…

If European countries rely solely on technological advances, they won't be able to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees. Households will also need to change their lifestyles. This 'inconvenient truth' is the result of calculations done by industrial ecologist Stephanie Cap. ‘It's not a popular message,…

Leiden alumnus Luc Amkreutz is a curator at the National Museum of Antiquities. His exhibition about the submerged landscape of Doggerland highlights what we can learn from prehistory. ‘Just like the people of Doggerland, we are confronted with climate change, but we are responsible for the speed of…

What is the significance of the history of slavery for our present-day society? A special exhibition in the inner courtyard of the Academy Building features eleven insightful portraits of students and staff, and their answer to this question. The aim of the exhibition’s initiators is to make the subject…

Organisation

Education administration offices

'Consider languages in their shared context.' That is the message of Professor and Arabist Beatrice Gründler, who will receive an honorary doctorate from Leiden University on 8 February. ‘I would like people to learn that Arabic history has a close connection with Europe.’

What is the best way to restore dune ecosystems? The project TERRA-Dunes researches the role of soil microbes in the development of natural dune areas. Recently, the project went into a new phase: planting 412 oak seedlings grown in different type of soils.

We need to dispel the arrogant and misguided idea that modern humans are superior to earlier human species. It is thanks in part to all our predecessors such as Neanderthals that we are who we are today. This is what Marie Soressi, Professor of Hominin Diversity Archaeology, will argue in her inaugural…

The Academic Language Centre is organising an introduction to Ukrainian with the Russian Studies/Russian and Eurasian Studies programmes. This six-part course is meant primarily for people who are in contact with refugees from Ukraine.

Is scientific research useful? In his dissertation, Jorrit Smit argues that in order to answer this question one should not look at, for example, prominent scholars or influential organisations, but at places where knowledge exchange and co-creation take place. Promotion 6 May.

‘If it rains later, then I’ll take the car.’ In order to reason, we use sentences containing ‘if’ every single day. But how does that work exactly in the Dutch language? Alex Reuneker wrote his 628 page dissertation on the subject. Ceremony on 26 January.

Nature News reported on the use of bow-and-arrow for hunting based on the research made on small points found in a 54,000-year-old cave site in southern France.

Education administration offices

Halima Bouras leaves for the City University of New York with her Fulbright scholarship. 'I am very happy with the Fulbright grant and excited to continue my research project in New York next semester', reacts Bouras. The aim of her PhD research is to promote educational opportunities and educational…

When and how to use the concept of “culture” . To medical anthropologists this is a core question, but also a challenging one.

The secular West is struggling with the rise of AI, but so too is Muslim Southeast Asia. What can we learn from each other?

You're about to graduate. That means there’s a lot to be arranged. The university expects you to take certain steps, as does your faculty and/or institute. Your faculty has various regulations and procedures in place that you need to follow carefully when arranging your graduation.

Scientists' computers are now full of complicated 3D models, but no standard has yet been developed for exchanging the data. A new database should change this. External PhD student Liselore Tissen is receiving a grant to contribute to this on behalf of Leiden University (and TU Delft). ‘It will be great…

Education

From global warming to the decolonisation of knowledge. At the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) in Leiden over 500 speakers from 60 countries have come together to discuss the big themes of our times. Why have the delegates come?

When deciding what to study you undoubtedly read a lot of information about your study programme. Leiden University employs various systems to provide information about programmes and courses and to facilitate communication between lecturers and students.

They hurtle along at over a thousand kilometres per second: the fastest stars in the Milky Way. PhD candidate Fraser Evans conducted research into these elusive hypervelocity stars and discovered that they have a lot to teach us, about black holes and supernovae, for example.

Education, Organisation

When we think of unethical medical experiments, we tend to think first of Nazi Germany. What is less well known is that experiments were also carried out in colonised areas without the explicit consent of the test subject. University lecturer Fenneke Sysling has received a European grant to research…

A special type of mirror to reflect X-rays has more possible applications than space research. Targeted radiation therapy for cancer, for example. Next to his full-time job, physicist David Girou mapped out the possibilities. He will receive his PhD on 14 June.

Campus The Hague gained a new facility. On Thursday 17 February, POPcorner was opened, helping students find their way during their studies and within the university buildings.

Dutch troops, judges and politicians collectively condoned and concealed the systematic use of extreme violence during the Indonesian War of Independence. Historians have now shown how this could happen. ‘It was scandal management rather than prevention,’ says Leiden historian and research leader Gert…

Effectively treating a severe case of pneumonia is often challenging. Identifying the pathogen behind it can be difficult. PhD candidate Ilona den Hartog tried something new: ‘We searched for answers in substances our own body produces.’ PhD defence on 17 September.

Yuchen Lian defended her thesis on AI and language evolution at Leiden University.

With the aid of artificial intelligence (AI), care professionals at the LUMC (Leiden University Medical Center) are able to calculate quickly and accurately whether a coronavirus patient has suffered serious lung damage. They do this by putting a CT scan through the AI software of the CAD4COVID-CT p…

Care robots, medical treatments, deepfakes and self-driving cars all with the aid of artificial intelligence (AI). The BrAInpower exhibition at Rijksmuseum Boerhaave shows spectacular applications of AI and explains how it can make such huge leaps. Bas Haring, Professor of Public Understanding of Science,…

Why use Google Maps when you can also calculate your bike route based on your own data. Statistician and cyclist Alexander Dürre sees statistics in everything around him. He analyses data of soccer games and calculates the possible winners of cycling races. ‘When I have too much time, I apply statistics…

Kai Hebel explains how the 1975 Helsinki Accords shaped European diplomacy and why their spirit remains urgently relevant in an era of renewed geopolitical in the Guardian.

Writing essays, refining grant applications, or creating a new course curriculum—ChatGPT assists students and researchers in these endeavours. What this new technology means for working in academia, was discussion at the fourth Psychology Connected event.

University lecturer Andrew Gawthorpe comments in an article on the Conversation on Trump’s attack on Iran.

In an article for The Conversation, University Lecturer Andrew Gawthorpe comments on the recent elections in the United States and what they mean for President Donald Trump’s position.

When is the last time you made a fire? Not light a candle with a match, but an actual fire from scratch. Thousands of years ago, humans already made fire. Archaeologist Andrew Sorensen (Leiden University) explains when and how they did this.