Ebru Alazi ‘hacked’ an enzyme-producing system in the fungus Aspergillus niger in order to produce renewable energy more easily. She manipulated the fungus, making it produce more pectinases: enzymes mainly used in the food industry and in the production of renewable energy, such as biofuels. Promotion…

Recently, the PhD thesis of Lolu Danso Eweje appeared entitled ’Development of human skin equivalents to unravel the impaired skin barrier in atopic dermatitis skin’.

In an Advance Online Publication biophysicist John van Noort and others show using magnetic tweezers that DNA is folded in compliant helices of chromatin. This allows enzymes access to the DNA needed for gene expression. Van Noort's research group made the discovery in close partnership with researchers…

Aukje Beers combined theory and practice, as well as chemistry, biology, and computer models. In this way, she discovered two protein inhibitors during her master’s project that could contribute to the development of a new cancer drug. For her research, Beers received the Unilever Research Prize on…

Remko Offringa, Associate Professor in Plant Developmental Genetics, and Associate Professor in Molecular Microbiology Arthur Ram both have been appointed as the new Directors of Education at the IBL. Offringa in the role as Director of Education for the Master program and Ram as Director for the Bachelor…

A new technique using fluorescent imaging to track the actions of enzymes might aid drug design for new anti-cancer, inflammation and kidney disease treatments. Researchers at the University of York and Leiden University have published these findings in Nature Chemical Biology.

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…

On the 19th of May 2020, our dear colleague and friend Professor Dr. Huib Ovaa has passed away from prostate cancer. Last summer Huib became ill, and in first instance it appeared that he had attracted a relatively harmless infectious disease. Unfortunately, it became soon apparent that he suffered…

Why does a medicine work well for one person, but cause side effects in another? Research by Laura de Jong shows that it’s not just our DNA that matters – other medicines and illnesses can also affect how our bodies respond.

Turning beer waste into a useful, sustainable product. That was the mission of students from Leiden at the international BISC-E event. The biology students challenged themselves and won third place in the Dutch finals of this competition. For this, they used the simple formula: Grain + fungus = coas…

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…

- Which metabolites could be components of NADES? - How can we prove the presence of NADES in nature? - What are the roles of NADES in nature? - How to apply NADES in life sciences?

If you are interested in Life Science and you are looking for a programme with ample opportunities to put together your own study path, our Life Science and Technology programme is the right choice. The programme focuses on societal problems at the molecular and cellular level.

Working for a top faculty? Discover the vacancies at the Faculty of Science and apply immediately.

Science, Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), Microbial Sciences

Living systems scale from unicellular microbes to complex multispecies communities that constantly change over time. Within the theme Development & Disease, we enhance our fundamental understanding of development and homeostasis of living cells and systems. We analyze the normal situation and how stresses…

Today, 13 students at Leiden University have started a crowdfunding campaign to collect money for research into the possibilities of growing crops on Mars. Their research will contribute to the knowledge of our galaxy. The project is in the context of the iGEM competition.

Leiden Biology student Martienke Baaij received the annual award for being the best BSc-student in 2017 from the “Stichting Professor Dr. K. Bakker-fonds”.

No, this isn’t about a Star Wars Alliance that wants to suppress The Resistance. Rather, the EPIC Alliance brings together scientific experts from seven countries to address the growing threat of antibiotic resistance. Leiden professor Nathaniel Martin is part of the 11-member consortium.

A new paramagnetic probe has been synthesized and applied to proteins.

A patent for what may be a potent, new antibiotic. And: a clear overview of promising approaches to overcome a crucial resistance tactic employed by bacteria. In the span of one week, two researchers from Leiden are receiving their PhDs, each of them on an important step in the battle against bacteria…

Destroying proteins from the Golgi apparatus of the cell in a controlled manner. That is the focus of chemist Marta Artola’s pioneering research. By developing a groundbreaking technology to target specific proteins in the Golgi, Artola aims to unlock new ways for drug development. For this ambitious…

Professor of Fungal Genetics and Biotechnology Arthur Ram explains how fungi can help us be more sustainable.

Research of the Leiden Institute of Chemistry into the development of a sustainable fuel cell has accidentally resulted in an exceptionally efficient catalyst for the production of hydrogen peroxide. The catalyst, discovered by Dennis Hetterscheid and PhD candidate Michiel Langerman, may lead to a more…

Leiden PhD candidate Jo-Anne Verschoor discovered that nearly twenty percent of the bacterial strains she studied could degrade plastic, though they needed some encouragement to do so. ‘Bacteria are just like people,’ says Verschoor. Her research was published in the journal Communications Biology,…

PhD research recently completed by pharmacologist Margreke Brill shows that morbidly obese patients should be given a different dosage of the drugs Cefazolin and Midazolam. This could also apply to other drugs such as anti-cancer drugs as well as antibiotics and Margreke Brill is advocating a change…

On Friday October 30th 2015 the sixth annual Jan Reedijk Symposium will be held. The main lectures of the day will be

Leiden Biology student Pam Engelberts received the annual award for being the best BSc-student in 2016 from the “Stichting Professor Dr. K. Bakker-fonds”.

Thread-like bacteria make cells that no longer have a cell wall under the influence of osmotic stress. A remarkable discovery, since the cell wall serves as a protection barrier for bacteria. It could also help to explain how pathogenic bacteria can hide in our body from our immune system. A team of…

Two consortia led by Leiden researchers have been awarded over one million euros by the Dutch Research Council and the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport to find solutions to antimicrobial resistance.

The bacterium Vibrio cholerae is a serious threat to our health because it is the causative agent of cholera. Worldwide, over a billion people per year are at risk of cholera infection. New strains of V. cholerae are resistant to the multiple drugs used to treat cholera, meaning that new types of drugs…

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…

Prof. Hermen Overkleeft has been awarded the 2015 Jeremy Knowles Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry for his innovative and insightful development of activity-based protein probes for the imaging and identification of enzymes in health and disease.

The genomic DNA of every organism is organized and compacted in order to fit inside the cell. This is achieved by the joint action of numerous architectural proteins that aid in folding the genome. Genome folding is tightly interconnected with transcription, with genes in certain regions being silenced,…

Current research at the Skin Barrier and Vaccination group.

Central in coordination and organometallic chemistry is the synthesis of new chelating ligands, the synthesis and characterization of metal complexes with these ligands, and the study of their properties. An important goal in my research is to create understanding of the relation between the structures…

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.

Streptomycetes are similar to moulds, but these bacteria live in the soil. They are very popular in biotechnology because they produce a great many antibiotics and enzymes. Gilles van Wezel will be using his Vici subsidy to study ways of increasing their production.

The opportunity to explore a new, exciting research topic. That is how Lennart Schada von Borzyskowski describes his successful application for the NWO XS grant. It comprises 50,000 euros, which the researcher from the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) will spend on investigating a more sustainable…

Students of the Faculty of Science have chosen Dennis Claessen (IBL) as the best teacher of last year.

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) selects prominent researchers as members based on their scientific achievements. On September 17th, the KNAW will install 21 new members, including Leiden physicist Michel Orrit and chemist Hermen Overkleeft.

Professor Hermen Overkleeft has received the esteemed Roy L. Whistler International Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry for 2024 by the International Carbohydrate Organization. The award recognises Overkleeft’s outstanding contributions to the field of carbohydrate chemistry and biochemistry.

We investigate bacteria and fungi to understand their malicious or beneficial impact on food crops and their pathogenic or antibiotic role in human health.

For his significant original contributions in the field of carbohydrate research, chemist Jeroen Codee will be awarded the biennial Carbohydrate Research Award for Creativity in Carbohydrate Chemistry.

Dennis Claessen has been appointed professor of Molecular Microbiology at the Institute of Biology Leiden. With his teaching and research on the cell wall, the professor wants to establish applications in the industry and the medical sector.

NWO is funding three partnership projects with the industry sector. The projects relate to speeding up the search for new medicines, studying the changes in proteins as medicine and developing analytical techniques for research on the building blocks of life.

Leiden biotech startup Azafaros has successfully completed a funding round, raising 25 million euros of investments for developing treatments of rare metabolic disorders. The company holds exclusive license to a library of novel patented compounds discovered by experts from Leiden University.

Not taking into account the saturation of drug targets can lead to wrong conclusions about the duration of a drug's action. This is what former PhD candidate Wilbert de Witte writes together with the Leiden professors of pharmacology Meindert Danhof, Piet van der Graaf, and Liesbeth de Lange in Nature…

All microscopic objects, from enzymes to paint particles, are jittering constantly, bombarded by solvent particles: this is called Brownian motion. How does this motion change when the object is flexible instead of rigid? Ruben Verweij, Pepijn Moerman and colleagues published the first measurements…