Her specialist field is molecular astrophysics, and she is the most quoted scholar in her field. In this, the year of astronomy, she is the ideal person to give the Dies lecture at the university with the world's oldest astronomy institute; it goes without saying that the lecture will be on the newest…

Ewine van Dishoeck was broadly covered in national and international media with her prestigious Kavli prize for astrophysics. She won 1 million dollars voor her groundbreaking work on star and planet formation and on extraterrestrial life.

No less than 172 international master students coming from 30 different countries visited the Faculty of Science on 29 August during the OWL: the Orientation Week Leiden.

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.

Ewine van Dishoeck, Professor of Molecular Astrophysics, was presented with the Kavli Prize by King Harald V of Norway during a ceremony on 4 September in Oslo. The prize consists of a gold medal and one million dollars.

Two AI research projects receive funding; one in the field of oncology and one in the field of cardiology.

From Mexico and Indonesia to China and Italy: people from all over the world read about the Leiden Observatory publication on the birthplace of comets. This research suggests that all comets in our solar system might come from the same place: a specific range in the flat disk of dust and gas that once…

Bart de Smit has been appointed to the position of Vice Dean of the Faculty of Science for four years, as of 1 January 2019. After Han de Winde stepped down as Vice Dean in September, De Smit already took over his duties ad interim.

On the occasion of the Women & Girls in Science Day, BBC Science Focus Magazine highlighted 6 prominent female chemists. Among them is Leiden professor Ewine van Dishoeck: 'Astrochemist investigating the building blocks of life'.

Eleven researchers of the Faculty of Science are on the 2021 Highly Cited Researchers list of Clarivate Analytics. Only 0.1 per cent of researchers are included in this list, literally making them one in a thousand.

Professor Philip Spinhoven has been appointed acting Scientific Director of the Institute of Psychology until 1 September 2021. He succeeds Michiel Westenberg who resigned from the position 1 January 2021, because he could no longer combine the responsibilities of Scientific Director with his academic…

On Tuesday evening 22 August, our very dear colleague Jo Hermans passed away. Jo had been ill for some time, but continued to enjoy life in good spirits until the very end. He meant a great deal to Leiden University and will be remembered with fond memories by many.

How does astronomy benefit you? The new single-episode podcast Cosmic Perspectives explores the impact of Dutch astronomy on society: from building positive international relationships to the transfer of life-changing technology.

Could water be present in planet-forming disks before the formation of rocky planets? The James Webb Space Telescope may have found evidence for that. Webb has for the first time observed water in the inner disc around young star where at greater distance, giant planets have already formed. The research…

A recent collaborative paper between researchers from the Theoretical Chemistry & Catalysis and Surface Chemistry groups has been chosen by the renowned Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics journal as a

Eleven researchers from Leiden University have been awarded an Open Competition Domain Science ENW XS grant by the Dutch Research Council for their research projects. They are researching how to make software faster and greener, improve cancer detection and reduce anxiety by manipulating the biological…

In health care, artificial intelligence is quite normal: it is used, for example, as an aid in making diagnoses. However, artificial intelligence is not yet used as much in drug development. A new prestigious partnership is therefore going to investigate how artificial intelligence can contribute to…

Four green research institutes in Leiden are joining forces to integrate evolution and biodiversity research, at local and at the national level. Pivot in this collaboration is Frederic Lens.

Bringing together institutes and research groups, how do you do that? The Faculty of Science set up a joint research theme and financed three PhD positions. After four years, the profiling programme Endocannabinoids expires. ‘It really brought us together, and the collaborations remain.’

Like ants, termites and bees, some bacteria work together as a multicellular group. There is a strict division of labour in such colonies, to make the group more resilient to the outside world. Now researchers have found that some parts of the bacterial colony can take ‘for the greater good’ to a whole…

Why do we need fundamental science? For a lot of reasons, speakers showed at the Lustrum Symposium ‘Science Matters’. This symposium was held on 18 March 2016 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Faculty of Science.

Chinese and Leiden scientists came together in Leiden to study the intricacies of modern visual techniques.

Sander van Kasteren only noticed some small, subtle changes since he was appointed professor on 1 May. Still, he has to get used to the idea, even though he had been working towards the professorship for a few years. ‘I don't quite see myself as a professor yet.'

Cryogenic memories, antibiotic treatment for urinary tract infections and recycling plastic sustainably. These are the subjects of the three NWO-XS grants awarded to Leiden Science researchers.

Chemist Sander van Kasteren aims to accurately map how our immune system responds to vaccines, particularly those aimed at curing diseases like cancer and chronic viral infections. The goal is to use this knowledge to improve vaccine design. An ERC Consolidation Grant will provide him with the funding…

Professor of Pharmacochemistry Ad IJzerman has won the Nauta Award for his years of research into signal processing proteins that are interesting for the development of new medications: G protein coupled receptors. The prize is awarded every two years for services to pharmacochemistry and chemical b…

Bacteria temporarily live without their cell wall if dangerous viruses are near. A remarkable feature, as the cell wall is a sturdy barrier against threats. Still, the discovery has a logical explanation ánd might be of a consequence for fighting pathogenic bacteria, according to Véronique Ongenae,…

Inaugural lecture

Dutch researchers have developed a new tool to label DNA for studying chromosomes in live cells. The tool is non-invasive and can be applied in culture but also in living organisms, such as zebrafish embryos. The team published their findings in the journal Nucleic Acids Research.

The fact that scientists are increasingly better able to access molecular cell and tissue data also brings with it a new challenge: how can scientists find the information they need for research among the vast amount of data available?

An international team of astronomers, with researchers at Leiden Observatory playing a leading role, has mapped the fuel for galaxy formation in the iconic Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The results of the research have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.

Observations made with the ALMA telescope in Chile and ESA’s Rosetta mission, have detected the faint molecular fingerprint of methyl chloride in gas, a chemical commonly produced by industrial biological processes on Earth, around both an infant star and a comet. Methyl chloride, also known as Freon-40,…

Hunter-gatherers acquire their food through complex gender-specific foraging techniques for a relatively stable and diverse supply of energy. New research indicates that this specialisation by boys and girls starts at a very young age. Most likely, this enabled the human species to evolve much larger…

Mathematician Robbin Bastiaansen, physicist Irene Battisti, pharmacist Fouzia Lghoul-Oulad Saïd and physics and astronomy student Maite Boden are the winners of the annual prizes of the Faculty of Science. Boden was honoured as the first Young Star, a new prize for the best bachelor’s student of the…

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.

Building a fire involves many variables, such as size, choice of fuel, temperature, and burn time, that affect the way the generated heat can be used, and therefore the potential function of a fire. A group of Leiden archaeologists are, together with a team of international colleagues, investigating…

An international team of astronomers led by Ardjan Sturm of the Observatory has made the first two-dimensional inventory of ice in a planet-forming disk of dust and gas surrounding a young star. The researches, including Melissa McClure, used the James Webb Space Telescope and publish their findings…

Photosynthesis is the origin of life on earth, but it is a phenomenon that is still barely understood. Take, for example, the extremely efficient mechanism of electron transport. Leiden researchers demonstrate for the first time where one particular cause of this might be found.

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…

An international team of laboratory astrophysicists and astrochemical modellers has shown that glycine, the simplest amino acid and an important building block of life, can form under the harsh conditions that govern chemistry in space. The results have been published this week in Nature Astronomy and…

From the birth of the universe to the molecules in a planet's atmosphere. The first five pictures from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) show the enormous range in which the space telescope can operate. Ewine van Dishoeck, professor of molecular astrophysics, took a look at the first images Tuesday…

A moon rock from the Apollo 17 mission, antique globes and the cosmos according to Wassily Kandinsky. Ewine van Dishoeck, Professor of Molecular Astrophysics, has put together an impressive exhibition at Rijksmuseum Boerhaave.

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.

From a new generation of antibiotics and more-effective vaccines to a map of dark matter and new light on Hindu traditions. Four researchers from Leiden University have received a prestigious €2.5m ERC Advanced Grant to develop their research.

He is occupied with the home stretch of his promotion. But in between, there is another challenge: Michael Meijer is going through to the finals of ‘The Smartest Chemist of the Netherlands’. On Tuesday 9 October, he and five others fight for this title during the Evening of Chemistry. ‘I was dragged…

A single tiny molecule that can destroy flu, corona, HIV and Zika viruses? Yes, it really does exist. Biophysicist Niek van Hilten, who will receive his doctorate on 14 September, contributed to this discovery.

One of the holy grails of drug research is to be able to assess the safety of chemicals and pharmaceuticals without using laboratory animals. Researchers from Leiden University, among others, now receive a grant from the National Science Agenda to pursue that goal.

The team of Alireza Mashaghi at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research has found a way to determine and classify the shape of proteins. Their new theory defines the topology of proteins as a simple and precise barcode that allows the identification of all types of folds. ‘This barcode enables…

Cancer research generates massive amounts of data, but traditional tools often fail to fully harness their potential. How can we unlock this data to provide better treatments for cancer patients? PhD candidate Marina Gorostiola González explored this by using advanced data analysis techniques to guide…

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.