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Professor Eline Slagboom has been studying multiple generations of families for over 20 years. She collects data on why some people age healthily and others decline early.

Medicines do not follow the one size fits all principle, because genetic differences can influence their efficiency. That is what research by PhD candidate Julia Hillger shows. She defends her PhD dissertation Take it Personal on Thursday 7 December.

As part of the NEXUS1492 project, this project will use ancient DNA techniques to shed new light on the demographic and health history of the Caribbean and the impact of European colonization on indigenous communities in the region.

We carry a profound responsibility for our research animals and strive to provide them with the best possible quality of life. In our studies, we make every effort to avoid and minimise discomfort for the animals. Below, you can learn more about how this is put into practice.

The programme of the 3rd International Workshop on Klinefelter Syndrome, Trisomy X, and XYY. International Workshop theme: 'A life-course perspective'

We investigate the molecular basis underlying health and disease and provide answers to existing and emerging health problems. Within this theme, we study diseases ranging from rare genetic disorders to cancer and infectious diseases. We make use of a wide variety of model systems and pursue diverse…

Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) is an internationally oriented institute for research and education in biology. We are part of the Faculty of Science at Leiden University.

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…

For thousands of years, the prehistoric communities of the Low Countries followed their own path, compared with the rest of Europe. An international research team has now published these findings in Nature.

PhD defence

Combining results from bibliometric analyses, a global sample of researcher opinions and case-study interviews, a new report reveals that although the benefits of open research data are well known, in practice, confusion remains within the researcher community around when and how to share research…

This project investigates the role of art in the public and academic debate on biosolar energy

Identifying natural plant-associated bacteria that provide targeted inhibition of pathogens through the production of antimicrobial peptides.

The members of LUXs develop and validate new methods and algorithms for analysing data, and apply these in a wide range of problems. Their research ranges from multidisciplinary applications to proving mathematical theorems.

Cancer is the leading cause of death in the Netherlands, and, with over 100 different types of cancer, it’s not a simple disease. Today, skin, breast, lung, prostate and colon cancer are the most diagnosed forms. Therefore, the discovery and development of new drugs has the ability to significantly…

What categories exist in the languages of pastoralists? Do these semantic concepts reflect universal or languagespecific tendencies? What (environment? culture?) governs the similarities (or the differences) attested crosslinguistically in cattle colour systems?

In this research group, headed by Laura Heitman, novel receptor concepts in drug discovery are studied, aiming to increase the effectivity of medicines. Many drugs act via so-called G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and therefore our research is mainly focused on understanding and improving drug-receptor…

The central question of this Vici proposal is to investigate if, and how actinobacteria exploit life without a cell wall.

The research within the Division of Cell Systems and Drug Safety, headed by Prof. Bob van de Water, is focused on novel therapeutic modalities and novel concepts in early drug discovery, in order to develop more effective and safer therapeutic strategies. We generate advanced cell and computational…

The main aim of this project is to investigate the various ways in which language categorizes possession, how these are morphosyntactically encoded across and within languages, and how this distinction should be represented in a model of the language faculty.

How do plants lure microscopically small 'support teams' into their roots for protection against diseases? And what functions are activated in the microbes and the plants?

A linguistic prehistory of the Tarim Basin in Northwest China

This project investigates properties of quantity expressions across languages from the perspective of how quantity is represented in the human brain.

The close interaction between organic chemi stry and biology goes back to the late 18th century, when the modern natural sciences began to take shape. After synthetic organic chemistry arose as a discipline, organic chemists almost immediately began to pursue the synthesis of naturally occurring compounds,…

When you apply for admission, you’ll be asked to submit several documents.

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.

Mathematical and computational analysis of the dynamics of polar transport of the plant hormone auxin.

Key research articles, reviews and books of the Chromatin group.

An overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2017, as well as special appointments and royal distinctions.

To be eligible for Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

Taner Kuru, an eLaw alumnus, was awarded the prestigious European Data Protection Law Review ‘Young Scholar Award’ for his paper on the shortcomings in the GDPR for the regulation of genetic testing at the prestigious Computers, Privacy and Data Protection Conference (CPDP).

The paper Genetic Algoriths for Evolving Computer Chess Programs by Omid E. David, Jaap van den Herik, Moshe Koppel, Nathan S. Netanyahu has won the Humies Award 2014 (human-competitive results produced by genetic and evolutionary computation).

Tuberculosis causes 1.5 million deaths yearly and anti-tuberculosis therapies are threatened by emergence of drug resistance. Development of innovative drug combinations should be accelerated with the use of translational pharmacological models. Moreover, host-directed therapies (HDT), which stimulate…

Which brain cell does what, when Parkinson's disease arises? It won't be long before this jigsaw is solved piece by piece. Ahmed Mahfouz, computational biologist, combines bio-knowledge from Leiden with algorithms from Delft and is getting closer to finding the key.

In this master programme you learn interdisciplinary approaches to address scientific and societal challenges in the field of (bio)medical sciences. The research in our programme Biomedical Sciences relates to the maintenance of health and prevention of disease. You will acquire a skill set suitable…

kiem grant: Investigating the anti-inflammatory potential of the PRG4 protein in preventing and alleviating rheumatoid arthritis

Parents may pass anxiety onto their offspring by exposing them to anxious behaviors in novel situations. Just as the parents’ anxious signals lead to anxiety, parents’ confident signals can ward off anxiety in the offspring. This project is seeking a new way to break anxiety transmission in the family…

The main purpose of this book is to give a description of the Cholón language as represented in the Arte de la lengua cholona (ALC), a colonial grammar written in 1748 by a Franciscan friar, named Pedro de la Mata. The ALC was transcribed by Fray Gerónimo Clota in 1772. This grammar is kept in the British…

Your time at Leiden is about more than just studying. Some of your best experiences will stem from being a part of our lively and diverse student community, as well as from life in the beautiful city of Leiden.

Microbes influence and respond to other organisms. This theme explores the dynamic relationships within plant and animal microbiomes, and the immune responses that govern host defense. Using model systems such as zebrafish, insects, and plants, we investigate fundamental processes and engineer microbes…

How do pathogenic mycobacteria alter lipid metabolism in human cells and patients, and which disrupted pathways could be targeted for new antibiotics?

This project, South American population history revisited: multidisciplinary perspectives on the Upper Amazon (SAPPHIRE), investigates population dynamics in western South America on the basis of traces in the geographical, genetic, archaeological, ethnological, and linguistic record.

What are key regulators of plant ageing that can reverse ageing in plants (rejuvenation), and how can we use this knowledge to improve crop plants?