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”.

Michiel van der Vaart with a team from Leiden University and the LUMC, led by IBL-researcher Annemarie Meijer, discovered that DRAM1 is a protein that regulates anti-bacterial autophagy, a defense mechanism against infections such as tuberculosis.

How safe are the nanoparticles in transparent sunscreen, anti-odour socks and bacteria-resistant plasters? Although microbes are present on all organisms, the tools that estimate the safety of nanomaterials still hardly take them into account. Bregje Brinkmann explored the role of these microbes during…

The cellular recycling system in zebrafish is capable of eating harmful bacteria and thus resist infections such as tuberculosis and salmonellosis. That is written by Leiden biologists from the group of Annemarie Meijer. Stimulating this form of defence could be used in new treatment methods against…

A full overview of BPOC/SSNMR PhD theses.

Nausea, neurologic pain and hair loss: some of the severe side effects of chemotherapy. Not necessary, biochemist Liyan Zhang showed. Together with Leiden biologists and others, she achieved great results with a drug that is only active in combination with light. Zhang will defend her PhD on 4 July.

Proactive zebrafish appear to have a much stronger wake-sleep rhythm than reactive fish. In the most reactive fish, rhythmicity appears to be lacking completely. This is shown with research by Leiden biologists, published in December 2018 in the journal BMC Biology.

Nanoparticles that transport medicines to a specific part of the human body are usually broken down in the liver prematurely. Jeroen Bussmann from Leiden University has discovered a new method to prevent this from happening. Publication in ACS Nano.

Dutch researchers have developed a new tool to label DNA for studying chromosomes in live cells. The tool is non-invasive and can be applied in culture but also in living organisms, such as zebrafish embryos. The team published their findings in the journal Nucleic Acids Research.

The 1st CIGR meeting was held on March 30, 2021, with talks by representatives of all participating groups.

Herman Spaink knows of many substances that may help combat tuberculosis. Lab space to study them safely is very limited in Leiden. A brand-new lab at Universitas Gadjah Mada in Indonesia will soon provide a solution. About time, says Spaink, ‘The disease is on the rise and is becoming less sensitive…

An overview of the research at the Cancer Dug Target Discovery group.

He’s a fast and animated speaker, which is only logical because Gerard van Westen is driving an express train. His destination? A virtual human, consisting of algorithms that predict what an administered substance will do in the body. The train is already a long way down the line and the pharmaceutical…

Improving healthcare with our scientific discoveries: that is the goal of pharmaceutical research at Leiden University. And there’s a lot involved in that. Our research starts with the discovery of the effect achieved by a particular substance, and sometimes continues all the way through to the development…

A full overview of MacBio PhD Theses.

The goal of pre-clinical development is to bridge the transition from lead compounds to clinical candidates by comprehensively characterizing safety, efficacy, and pharmacological properties. Once a lead compound demonstrates promising activity in disease models, it enters pre-clinical development where…

Professor Fons Verbeek of the computer science and biology institutes at Leiden University has the fascination to visualize everything we can not see immediately. At SleutelstadFM he tells us that by converting 2 dimensional (2D) images to 3 dimensional (3D) structures, research is carried out into…

'What do people do with snake venom?' That's the question 11-year-old Joep asked in Dutch TV show Willem Wever. Leiden Professor of Evolutionary developmental zoology and snake venom expert Michael Richardson answers the question in his laboratory.

On October 26, the Dutch Embassy in Berlin celebrated the opening of a new research network for Dutch academics in Germany. Dutch minister of Education, Culture and Science Robbert Dijkgraaf gave the starting signal for this new initiative.

An interdisciplinary team of Leiden researchers has discovered that wasting syndrome, a severe byproduct of tuberculosis, is the same for all humans and animals studied. The discovery offers new opportunities to investigate the still insufficiently understood condition. The scientists also developed…

KITLV-Jakarta merayakan hari jadinya yang ke 50 tahun. KITLV-Jakarta adalah bagian dari perpustakaan Universitas Leiden. Dalam rangka hari jadi tersebut beberapa kegiatan diselenggarakan. Beikut highlight dari rangkaian perayaan ulang tahun KITLV-Jakarta. KITLV-Jakarta’s 50th Anniversary Seminar: “Indonesian…

Eleven researchers from Leiden University have been awarded an Open Competition Domain Science ENW XS grant by the Dutch Research Council for their research projects. They are researching how to make software faster and greener, improve cancer detection and reduce anxiety by manipulating the biological…

Already during their bachelor’s programme, students in Pharmaceutical Sciences are presented with challenging projects. One of these is the Bachelor Research Assignment (BOO in Dutch), which is often their first real experience with scientific research. This means a lot of responsibility and failures,…

This summer postdoctoral researcher Mónica Varela from the Institute of Biology Leiden was awarded a Veni grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). Six questions about her project and hopes for the future.

Koen Keijzer combined three mathematical models into one unified system capable of making meaningful predictions about how cells form blood vessels. This helps biologists studying the chaotic, leaky blood vessels found in and around tumours.

The new project INFLANET will train young scientists in Europe to become experts in inflammation research. Professor Annemarie Meijer from the Institute of Biology Leiden coordinates the training.

To develop good cancer treatments, we need to know much more about how malignant tumour cells develop. Professor Ewa Snaar-Jagalska looks at not just the effect of medication on isolated cells but also the behaviour of cancer cells in their tissue environment. Inaugural lecture on 11 December.

The Horizon 2020 project ImageInLife has started on 1 January, followed by a kick-off meeting at the coordinating University of Montpellier at the end this month. This Marie Skłodowska-Curie training network brings together European groups that work on the imaging of vertebrates and offers fourteen…

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…

Recently, NWO has decided to grant two interdisciplinary research proposals for national and international consortia submitted by researchers from the Institute of Biology Leiden. One of the proposals is led by Prof. dr. Ariane Briegel, the other one by dr. Remko Offringa.

Acute stress seems to have a surprisingly positive effect on our health. Researcher Erin Faught received an NWO veni grant to find out why that is and how we can use that knowledge to our advantage. For her lab research, she uses a remarkable small animal to learn more about our own stress levels.

Theoretical physicist Helmut Schiessel receives an NWO Projectruimte grant of 390,000 euro. He will use this budget to hire a postdoc and a PhD student to continue his research on flexibility of double stranded DNA.

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.

Freek Vonk and Mike Richardson, with many collaborators, have published two snake genomes in two parallel articles in the prestigious journal PNAS. Their new findings provide insight into the co-evolutionary arms race between predator and prey.

Venomous animals serve as models for a variety of mimicry types. Michael Richardson (IBL) and his international colleagues find that a group of fishes (called fangblennies) evolved venom after the origin of their venom-delivering fangs.

A study by an international group of scientists headed by Prof. Michael Richardson showed that asymmetry in the snake lungs manifests itself early in development.

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…

About forty microscopes, various laboratories, and some 15,000 zebrafish: that’s Sylvia le Dévédec's workplace. She is one of the managers of the Leiden Cell Observatory, a unique facility accessible to all researchers.

A new analysis of the king cobra genome by Michael Richardson, Christian Henkel (IBL) and collaborators at the IBL and Naturalis, Helsinki and Singapore has been published in

The first phase of the construction of the new building for the Faculty of Science is finished. The Cell Observatory of the Institute of Biology Leiden will be moving to the new building on the 19th of May.

The construction of the new building for the Faculty of Science is in full progress. The Cell Observatory of the Institute of Biology Leiden will be moving to the new building in the beginning of 2016. Professor Annemarie Meijer and Dr. Marcel Schaaf had a sneak preview.

During the annual LACDR Spring Symposium, the audience chose PhD student Rob van Wijk as best speaker. Furthermore, six PhD students won a poster prize. Matthias P. Mayer of Heidelberg University opened the symposium with a keynote lecture about chaperone proteins.

Single-celled organisms have stiffer DNA than multicellular lifeforms like humans and rice. Theoretical physicists managed to simulate the folding in full genomes for the first time to reach this conclusion. Publication in Biophysical Journal on February 7.

Ten Leiden students have received a prize from the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW). They were nominated by their degree programme. Who are these students?

There are many complex links in the chain that provides patients with new drugs: from fundamental science, to clinical tests, to production. The entire chain can be found in Leiden. Leiden University, the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and the businesses at the Leiden Bio Science Park (LBSP)…

The Division of Systems Pharmacology and Pharmacy (SPP) aims to develop precision medicine approaches to characterise and predict variation in treatment response and enhance translational drug development strategies.

Leading computer scientists from a variety of fields share their expertise and insights. Dive into the minds of these researchers and learn about real-world applications, the future of AI and related technologies and cutting-edge research. From chatbots to cybersecurity, from quantum to children's stories,…

With the necessary measures, researchers restart their work in various laboratories. The Leiden Cell Observatory is one of the places where scientists resume their lab work.