Annelot van Esbroeck-Weevers, PhD student at the Molecular Physiology research group at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry, headed by Dr. Mario van der Stelt, has been awarded the Best Oral Communication Prize at the 8th European Workshop on Cannabinoid Research, held from 31 August to 2 September 2017…

Anthe Janssen, a PhD student in the Molecular Physiology research group of Prof. Mario van der Stelt, has been awarded the Public's Choice Prize for Best Oral Presentation during the Young Medicinal Chemist Symposium '18 in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

When internist Christian Blank made his very first discovery, his field of immunotherapy was the underdog of cancer research. Now, over 20 years later, Blank has been appointed Professor By Special Appointment of Internal Medicine for his clinical research into immunotherapy and will give his inaugural…

Mario van der Stelt (Head of the department of Molecular Physiology at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry) has received the Young Investigator Award from the International Cannabinoid Research Society during the annual meeting of the society in Montreal, Canada. The Young Investigator Award was given…

Dr Kim Duistermaat (NVIC) en Niels Groot (TU Delft)

Thanks to data science, we can chart and search enormous quantities of related information. This generates all kinds of new insights, for example in complex global financial structures or such societal problems as loneliness.

How do cells repair their damaged DNA—and what happens when that process is hindered and cancer arises? Sarah Moser has taken a closer look during her PhD, uncovering surprising insights that could help improve future cancer treatments.

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.

For his ground-breaking chemical biological research, a VICI-grant has been awarded to Mario van der Stelt, professor of Molecular physiology at Leiden University. In a new research line, he aims to discover binding sites for new medicines against inflammations in the brain.

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…

Zhiyi Yu was elected as the winner of the annual PhD Competition at the LACDR Spring Symposium on June 17th 2014.

In this Yearbook you will find some fascinating examples of what was done in 2021, not only by ourselves, but also by our international colleagues.

The Faculty of Law

The first decade of excavations at Oss

A global synthesis of the extent, diversity and patterns in off-site fire use by historically documented and current hunter-gatherers with the remit of this study in the deeper past.

The Persian Empire (539-330 BCE) was the first world empire in history. At its height, it united a territory stretching from present-day India to Libya - and it would take 2,000 years before significantly larger empires emerged in early modern Eurasia. This territorial sweep is both a source of fascination…

This specialisation focuses on two important trends in health care: early diagnosis and developing the most targeted patient-specific treatment possible with the shortest possible recovery time and minimal side effects.

Born in Europe roughly 100 years ago, quantum physics brought forth a veritable technological revolution through semiconductors, lasers, fibre optics, and many other technologies that are today ubiquitous in our lives. Now, during the second quantum revolution, Europe can take the lead once more in…

Tracing Transitional English in the Twelfth Century

Computational thinking, programming, and algorithms form the basic of many of the things that are shaping our world, the way we work, interact, organize ourselves, and even spend our free time with social networks, streaming media, and games. And this transformation is far from being complete, it is…

Modern scientific discovery increasingly depends on High-Performance Computing (HPC) systems that combine traditional processors with specialized accelerators such as GPUs.

Two projects from Leiden University have been awarded a grant through the programme.

A flu virus could cause a pandemic. And then we would be poorly armed because flu viruses are starting to become resistant to flu medications like Tamiflu. Chemist Merijn Vriends successfully worked on an improved version of such medications. He will be awarded his doctorate on September 12th.

A breakthrough from the PhD research of medical chemist Elmer Maurits may help patients with autoimmune diseases and blood cancer in the future. But bringing a discovery from the lab to the clinic is not so easily done. Thanks to NWO's Venture Challenge, Maurits and his team will receive ten weeks of…

A combination of two potential drugs gives hope of a 'super blockage' of an over-active immune system, Leiden researchers report in Nature. The breakthrough came from the crystallisation of a membrane protein.

Researchers from Leiden University, University of York, University of Barcelona/IQTCUB/ICREA and The Francis Crick Institute report a new class of experimental compounds that powerfully block influenza viruses. The findings offer a potential new strategy for treating flu infections and preparing for…

LED3 is the combined effort of four excellent institutes of Leiden University. Through joined hands, we are able to give rise to a more effective early drug discovery pipeline. Let us briefly introduce the institutes.

Chemical biologists from Leiden, led by Dr Mario van der Stelt, have discovered substances that can reduce inflammation processes in the brain. This is a first step in the development of potential medicines for the treatment of brain diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Published in Proceedings…

Tackling key challenges of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry to aid drug discovery is one of the focus areas of Leiden University. To this end, the Leiden Early Drug Discovery & Development network (LED3) was established by the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC), the Institute of Biology Leiden…

A night sky of more than 40 petabytes in size, simulating young star clusters and understanding how the body inhibits viruses: three Leiden projects have received computing time on one of the national computer systems.

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.

PhD candidate Marc Baggelaar of the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC) graduated cum laude on Thursday 6 April. His thesis on the endocannabinoid system in the brain is very comprehensive and of high quality, according to the jury. ‘A very talented young scientist, that definitely belongs to the top…

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…

Zebrafish-human communication shows that cancer cells lacking a signaling protein are less able to develop aggressive metastatic properties. This discovery has been made by molecular cell biologist Claudia Tulotta. PhD defence 14 June.

Thomas Bakkum en Tom van der Wel, two PhD candidates from the Leiden Institute of Chemistry, have both won poster prizes at the EMBL Chemical Biology Conference 2018 in Heidelberg.

Freek Janssen, a PhD-student in the department of Molecular Physiology, has received an award for the best oral presentation during the Young Medicinal Chemist Symposium organised by the European Federation of Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC-YMCS’16). Freek Janssen presented his work on “Development of Highly…

The Data-Driven Drug Discovery Network (D4N) is an initiative by researchers from Leiden University and collaborators to join efforts in applying and developing novel techniques from data science to drug discovery and related topics from bioinformatics.

Twenty years from now, the world population is estimated to be around 9 billion people (now 8 billion). In combination with the improvements in living standards and the corresponding growth in consumption, this population will result in an enormous increase in the demand for food, consumables, water…

How has migration affected Irish and Italy society since 1945?

Leiden is the ideal city for students. There is a wide variety of activities you can do next to your studies, to make the most out of your student life.

Leiden University provides ambitious students with the most recent and innovative areas of knowledge, and offers them the freedom to develop their own area of expertise.

Distinguished Fellows of Leiden University College The Hague are acknowledged for their extensive and outstanding expertise in the private or public sector, and for their intellectual contributions to LUC’s academic programme and scholarly community.

Organisations such as the EU are of enormous benefit to the member states, but the inhabitants of the member states are often unaware of this. Leiden researchers investigate whether international organisations such as the EU or ASEAN are able to influence global politics.

Simulations of galaxies help researchers understand astronomical observations better. The EAGLE simulation, a large project in which Leiden astronomers play a leading role, shows the evolution of the Universe, from just after the Big Bang to the present day.

Information about the situation in Ukraine

How do we decide on the long-term future of children placed in care in a valid, reliable, traceable and transparent way – together with parents and young people?

Smart algorithms and powerful processors are just as essential for astronomy as big telescopes. Astronomers at Leiden University therefore constantly operate at the interface between astronomy and data science.

A cautious response to a crisis or terrorist act avoids the creation of a culture of fear. This is another way to reduce our vulnerability to terrorism.