The research conducted at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research is clustered within the divisions of BioTherapeutics, Cell Systems and Drug Safety, Medicinal Chemistry and Systems Pharmacology and Pharmacy, and the Metabolomics and Analytics Centre.

How do lipases in Mycobacterium tuberculosis help the bacteria survive, and can we target them to create new antibiotics?

Developing new medicines is one of modern science's most significant hurdles, a process marked by high costs, long timelines, and frequent failures of promising candidates.

Several techniques are explored for going beyond the born-oppenheimer static surface model for molecule-surface reactions.

The work in this thesis demonstrates how to obtain an atomic-scale picture of a diverse set of complex surface structures observed using STM, under disparate conditions.

What is the optimal design of sandy solutions for sustainable climate change adaption, from an ecological, biophysical and societal point of view?

Bachelor projects are available in

The research group of Silke Henkes at Leiden University. Part of the Leiden Institute of Physics (LION). The group studies the physics opf active materials.

Relevant publications of the CIGR participants.

Scientists at Leiden University (Netherlands), Stuttgart University (Germany) and Ural Federal University (Russia) have successfully put forward a novel, computed, reaction mechanism that was experimentally tested and show that formaldehyde is formed at much earlier stages in the birthplaces of stars…

PhD defence

PhD defence

Lecture

Animal diet studies are critical for understanding ecological processes such as trophic interactions, energy flow, and nutrient cycling. By examining what animals consume, ecologists gain insights into species specialization, predator-prey relationships, and ecosystem management.

This thesis presents pioneering work on the panchromatic emission of some of the most luminous galaxies in the early Universe: star forming galaxies and active galactic nuclei.

Studying how single DNA molecules behave helps us to better understand genetic disorders and design better drugs. Until now however, examining DNA molecules one-by-one was a slow process. Biophysicists from Delft University of Technology and Leiden University developed a technique that speeds up screening…

How have British cities changed in the years since the Second World War? And what drove this transformation? This innovative new history traces the development of the post-war British city, from the 1940s era of reconstruction, through the rise and fall of modernist urban renewal, up to the present-day…

Promotor: E. Bouwman, Co-promotor: S. Bonnet

This thesis takes steps toward understanding the interaction between gas-phase and solid-state molecules in star- and planet-forming regions.

Metals surfaces form a group of effective catalysts for the reaction of small molecules such as hydrogen (H2).

The cannabinoid receptor type 2 (CB2R) is associated with several inflammatory diseases with an unmet medical need (e.g. Alzheimers, multiple sclerosis, reumatoid arthritis). Development of new chemical biology strategies to study this protein is essential to aid future development of drugs for these…

Zebrafish is an excellent model organism for studying various human diseases. Due to opaqueness of the adult phase, in vivo studies are restricted to early embryonic stages. This raises the need for rapid sensitive and non-invasive in vivo imaging methods to follow developmental processes, not only…

The focus of our theoretical research is understanding the behaviour of soft condensed matter, physical matter which is deformed or structurally altered by thermal fluctuations or small stresses.

Mechanobiology is a major area in biology, however, mechanics is currently a missing element in drug development pipelines. This has led to a high cost for the society. Mechanotoxicity of drugs often appears as a long-term side effect of drugs, and has led to removal of drugs from the market. Furthermore,…

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is one of the most pressing challenges that humanity faces in the coming decades.

Focus in skin research

Due to their central physiological roles in living organisms, retaining beta-glycosidases have been the subject of tremendous research efforts to examine their structure/function relation using numerous biophysical and biochemical approaches.

Promotor: Prof.dr. J.P. Abrahams, Prof.dr. M. van Heel

Promotor: J.G.E.M. Fraaije, Co-Promotor: A. Kros

A main goal of MSBB research is to address the major bottle-necks in combatting viral diseases: the lack of experimental models that are representative of human pathology and are cost effective and versatile. Viral diseases such as those that cause viral hemorrhagic syndromes or severe acute respiratory…

Promotor: J.P. Abrahams, Co-Promotor: N.S. Pannu

Advanced UHF MRI techniques provide powerful tools for studying the zebrafish brain, an emerging model in neurological research. In this work, various MRI and localized MRS methods are optimized and employed for UHF strength for studying the zebrafish brain.

Barrier function is the natural role of the skin. The lipid matrix present in the outermost layer of the skin, the stratum corneum is important for this function.

Climate change is one of the largest challenges faced by humanity. To combat this research into alternatives to fossil fuels is ongoing. Dihydrogen is considered a good alternative fuel, since its burning only forms water.

Microbial Sciences' contribution to the Host-Microbe Interactions research theme is to investigate how beneficial or disease-causing microbes associate and interact with their host.

On Friday 10 July the Towards Biosolar Cells research programme was granted a budget of 25 million euros by the Dutch Government. The Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality recommended the programme because it will contribute to green energy, improve food supplies and a create a more sustainable…

Finding structure in disordered proteins and developing drugs for undruggable diseases: it might sound like mission impossible, but pharmacologist Alireza Mashaghi and his team are right on top of it. Their project was awarded by NWO through the Open Competition Domain Science -XS, a competition that…

Promotor: M. Ubbink, Co-promotor: G. Siegal

Outflows are crucially important for the gas budget and evolution of luminous star-forming galaxies and AGNs, with observed mass outflow rates of the same order as the star formation rate. Greater star formation and black hole growth lead to more intense feedback and outflows, resulting in self-regulated…

Organic molecules in interstellar space are important as they influence the structure of galaxies and star formations. Studying catalytic processes in space allows us to understand how molecular species are formed and chemically evolved in the interstellar medium and solar system objects.

Engineering an efficient microbial enzymatic polyethylene degradation pathway via an innovative combination of biochemistry and computational biology tools for enzyme discovery and characterization.

The drug BIA 10-2474 inhibits fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH), a lipase that degrades a specific endocannabinoid. On the basis of this activity, BIA 10-2474 was being developed as a potential treatment for anxiety and pain. In a phase 1 trial of the drug, one subject died, and four others suffered…

How does an embryonic stem cell decide if it becomes a heart cell or a kidney cell? That’s the question computational biologist Maria Mircea studied for her PhD research. She looked at the inside of individual cells to analyse how they change. This is what she discovered.