It is a stormy Sunday afternoon, with gusts of a whopping 110 kilometres per hour. Chemist Teun Sweere defies the enormous headwind on his city bike and wins the NK Headwind cycling after 22,5 minutes. A new highlight follows six months later: his PhD defence (14 June).

A group of early career scientists have written a code of ethics through an initiative of the World Economic Forum. Chemist and co-author Sander van Kasteren explains its importance: ‘We want to show that we scientists have our own inherent morals too, and that we too are part of society.’

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…

Astronomer Donggang Wang, physicist Anne Meeussen and chemists Nick Gerrits and Elliot Mock: all four are receiving a Rubicon grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This grant for young talent will enable them to spend two years doing research at a foreign university.

Michiel Veldhuis received the most public votes for the C.J. Kok Public Award and may therefore call himself Discoverer of the Year. Veldhuis researches how climate change affects savannah ecosystems in Africa and how we can protect them.

During the 20th anniversary meeting of the Netherlands' Catalysis and Chemistry Conference, Marc Koper received the Netherlands Catalysis and Chemistry Award. ‘The ultimate candidate for the prize’, it says in one of the recommendation letters.

In het Leids Universitair Medisch Centrum wordt gewerkt aan de ontwikkeling van een nieuw malariavaccin dat effectiever is dan de huidige vaccins.

James Webb life’s building blocks

On September 30, 2022, our esteemed former colleague Gerrit Lodder passed away from the effects of Parkinson's disease. He leaves behind his wife Adry, his sons Gert-Jan and Michiel, his daughters-in-law Annerieke and Manyana and grandchildren Annelot and Gijs in sadness, but also in the knowledge that…

Chemist Gerjan de Bruin has designed a method of slowing down the degradation process of proteins in cells. This may contribute to new cancer medicines with fewer side-effects. PhD defence on 1 June.

Since its discovery thirty years ago, it remained a mystery: how does the body’s own marijuana move between nerve cells in the brain? Mario van der Stelt and his research group have now uncovered the answer. This insight could aid the development of new treatments for pain and neurological disorders…

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, an international team of researchers, including Leiden Professor of Molecular Astrophysics Ewine van Dishoeck, has discovered a palette of hydrocarbons in a planet-forming disc around a young, low-mass star. The results confirm that discs around very lightweight…

Of this year’s four NWO Spinoza Prizes, two have been awarded to Leiden researchers. On 12 September, Eveline Crone and Michel Orrit received their prizes, the highest scientific award in the Netherlands. The Spinoza Prize carries an award of 2.5 million euros.

Sebastian Pomplun manages to reach proteins with drugs even where this was thought impossible. That is why he and his research group have been allowed to join Oncode Institute. With nine others, he had been selected from 72 applicants to contribute to Oncode Institute's mission: to accelerate breakthroughs…

Biological chemist Nathaniel Martin and his team received an NWO grant to examine how blocking a specific enzyme in our body, NNMT, could be helpful in the treatment of some cancers. Trials with mice have been promising, and together with the Netherlands Cancer Institute, Martin wants to take the next…

Cookware handles, electrical plugs, brake pads. Unlike other plastics, these ‘thermosets’ cannot simply be melted down and reshaped, making them difficult to recycle. Chemist Roxanne Kieltyka and her team are now exploring a way to make these materials recyclable, potentially transforming the way we…

Electrochemist Marc Koper has won a special award: the Allen J. Bard Award in Electrochemical Science. 'Allen Bard has always been a great example to me, so it is extra special to win this award.' The award will be granted by the Electrochemical Society, at their half-yearly conference next year in…

In order to stop a whole range of diseases or disorders at their source, you would have to be able to switch certain genes on or off. Sebastian Pomplun wants to develop substances that can do this very precisely. For example, he wants to disrupt cancer processes and make cells produce an important missing…

Biological chemist Nathaniel Martin is going to test an alternative antibiotic that can combat common resistant bacteria such as MRSA. For this purpose, he will receive 350,000 euros from the NWO's NACTAR programme. ‘We want to know how safe and effective our antibiotic is in a realistic situation.’

This year, Leiden University is organising the 34th Award Ceremony of the World Cultural Council (WCC). Who will be the prize winners this year?

In a full lecture hall C1 the Faculty of Science started off the new academic year on Tuesday 5 September. The theme of the meeting was, just as it had been at the university's opening the day before, sustainability.

Marc Koper, Professor of Catalysis and Surface Chemistry, has been elected as President Elect of the International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE). He will be President Elect for two years starting January 2019, followed by two years as President and two years as Immediate Past President.

The European Research Council, better known as the ERC, turns ten this year, and researchers from Leiden celebrated this on 23 June. The ERC is an important provider of research funding, also to Leiden University. Over the past ten years researchers from the University have been awarded over 70 ERC…

The Executive Board has appointed Herman Paul (Institute for History) as Professor of History of the Humanities. He will take up the role from 1 January 2019.

The surface of platinum electrodes changes much more during use than was previously thought. In a collaboration between the Leiden Institutes of Chemistry and Physics, chemists Leon Jacobse, Yi-Fan Huang and Marc Koper, and physicist Marcel Rost have been able to show this for the first time. Publication…

Is it possible to diagnose diseases using molecular switches? The new international consortium LogicLab will address this question. Leiden chemist Sylvestre Bonnet and Leiden pharmacologist Thomas Hankemeier are involved in the project. LogicLab will run for four years and will receive over 3.5 million…

Chemist Alexander Kros and astronomer Joop Schaye are two of the four Leiden researchers who have been awarded a Vici as part of NWO's Innovation Research Incentives scheme. They each have 1.5 million euros to set up a research group and employ PhD candidates.

Graphene floating on water does not repel water, as many researchers believe, but rather attracts it. This has been demonstrated by chemists Liubov Belyaeva and Pauline van Deursen and their supervisor Grégory F. Schneider. Publication in Advanced Materials.

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…

Chemist Tobias Bauer discovered ways to improve drugs by encapsulating them. Packages with iron nanoparticles, for example, can stimulate immune cells. Bauer will receive his PhD on 9 June.

Collaborating and learning from other fields – that is what bioinformatician Hannah Augustijn enjoys most about doing research. During her PhD at Leiden University, she developed new ways to search within bacteria for the antibiotics of the future.

Lecture, LAC Asia Academy

Only the fittest cyclists stand a chance of taking yellow in the brutal Tour de France. Team Jumbo-Visma is working with data scientists from Leiden. They have analysed the stages and performance of Jumbo-Visma’s riders in previous Grand Tours. And they are researching how to determine the fitness level…

Student Session

Lecture, LAC Asia Academy

The receptor nomenclature committee of IUPHAR, the International Union of Pharmacology, has several subgroups. Among these are a few that our division is involved in, those for adenosine, nicotinic acid, and GnRH receptors.

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden University’s Faculty of Medicine with Haramaya University in Ethiopia.

Lecture

The better you mirror each other's behavior, the better you appear to work together. In her PhD research at the unit Cognitive Psychology in Leiden, Friederike Behrens has developed a measure to capture the dynamic process of mirroring in numbers. PhD defense on 28 October.

325 students received their Bachelor’s Diploma of International Studies on 30 August 2019. The students received their diplomas in the historic Pieterskerk in Leiden, in front of a large audience of family and friends. With more than 1100 people present, including 325 graduates, this was the largest…

Organised in four separate sessions throughout the day, and broadcast live online to guests and families who could not join, a total of 260 students received their Bachelor’s Diploma of International Studies on 28 August 2020 at the graduation ceremony in the historic Pieterskerk in Leiden.

What does the UN seek to achieve though global observance days, weeks and years and how have these initiatives impacted the role of the organization in forwarding the agenda of human rights?

Impartiality, objectivity, honesty, and accuracy are qualities that generations of scholars have regarded as necessary for the pursuit of scholarly inquiry. Philosophers call them epistemic virtues, because these virtues facilitate the pursuit of epistemic aims such as knowledge and understanding of…

Andrew Littlejohn composed a sonic ethnography with sounds recorded in Japan’s northeastern region. To understand the experience of being in the middle of a changing landscape, Littlejohn composed a sonic ethnography called Shizugawa, named after a district in Minamisanriku Town where he recorded.

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.

On June 14th, Jeroen Duindam, Professor of History at the Faculty of Humanities, was awarded an exceptionally high distinction for his achievements in the field of Austrian history.

This February, Leiden University honors two scholars who have responded to the challenges of modern society in important, innovative and exemplary ways. Catherine Malabou and Safiya Umoja Noble will receive honorary doctorates for their ground breaking research in philosophy and internet/media studies…

In this new column, colleagues share stories and experiences about working and living abroad. The first story is written by Marie-Agnes Dittrich, guest lecturer at the Institute for History. She is a musicologist at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Below, she tells about her experience…