LCD screens use liquid crystals which have a high degree of order, even though they form a fluid. A new theory maps out the interplay between order, temperature and symmetry. Publication in Physical Review X.

Leiden University supports the new Zuid-Holland Acceleration Programme, which builds on the Growth Agenda for Zuid-Holland and focuses on accelerating innovation, sustainability and economic growth in the region.

During illness, the stiffness or viscosity of cells can change. Tom Evers demonstrated this by measuring such properties of human immune cells for the first time. ‘The stiffness of certain cells could be a way to make a diagnosis,’ Evers said. He defended his thesis on March 26th.

The Case of the Painted Plaster

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.

Research and education at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry is overseen by the Institute Board. The Board and representatives of the two research themes form the Management Team. The Scientific Council (WERA), the Institute Council (I-Raad) and the platform for PhDs and post-doctoral co-workers (LIC73)…

Analysing the ways in which immigration structurally challenges and changes the organization and conceptual boundaries of national welfare states.

This book surveys a distinct human phenomenon in the history of the ancient Near East: individuals who were born males but, under various social and historical circumstances, their masculine identity was considered ambiguous. They bore specific titles and were engaged in cult or palace administration.…

Just Published: EU Banking and Insurance Insolvency (second edition) Authored and Edited by Gabriel Moss QC, Bob Wessels and Matthias Haentjens Published by Oxford University Press

Knowledge and culture subproject 4:

We know this, but we don’t act on it: eat healthily, move more, address our stress levels and sleep well. Internist and Professor of Diabetology Hanno Pijl is fascinated by the effect that a healthy lifestyle can have on health. He researches how this lifestyle is achievable and satisfying, for patients…

The STRINGS project is mapping development pathways for science, technology and innovation that best address the UN Sustainable Development Goals. A consortium of seven universities led by Tommaso Ciarli at SPRU at the University of Sussex and the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) have worked…

The Biological- and Soft-Matter Physics Master specialisation is one of the two programmes Leiden offers in experimental Physics. The programme can to a high degree be tailored to individual needs and interests.

SAILS is a Leiden university wide initiative aiming to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Some people are predisposed to develop cancer. Mutations in genetic material that increase a person’s chances of developing cancer can already be present at birth. Researchers are closely examining these mutations to learn more about how cancer begins to develop.

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…

The CMCB comprises research groups from the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC) and the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC).

Prof. Elizabeth de Lange is concerned with the allocation of resources for the conduct of science towards the goal of best serving the public interest. Also, while she underscores that there is still the need for using animals in drug research, she is concerned about this use, and advocates the use…

Key publications of the Predictive Pharmacology group.

The discovery of new medicines is a tedious and lengthy process. On average, over 10,000 molecules need to be studied for one to become a drug and reach the patient. Part of that process are the very costly clinical trials in humans, and candidate drugs often fail due to side effects or lack of efficacy.…

Can we develop a tool to early identify male chicken eggs?

In pursuit of solutions to China’s inter-regional cross-border insolvency cooperation, my doctoral dissertation provides 10 original recommendations accompanied with comments, which are entitled “China’s Inter-regional Cross-border Insolvency Arrangement” (CICIA).

All languages use melody in speech, primarily via rises and falls of the pitch of voice. Such pitch variation is pervasive, offering a wide spectrum of nuance to sentences – an additional layer of meaning. For example, saying “yes” with a rising pitch implies a question (rather than an affirmation).…

Bij de Universiteit Leiden zet onze Onderzoeksgroep violence and violence prevention zich in voor het bevorderen van kennis en begrip op het gebied van geweld en geweldpreventie door middel van interdisciplinaire wetenschappen en innovatieve methodologieën. Onze faculteitsleden zijn toonaangevende…

In December 2024, the book Redressing Fundamental Rights Violations by the EU: The Promise of the ‘Complete System of Remedies', edited by Melanie Fink, was published fully open access with Cambridge University Press. The EU prides itself on having created a legal system that puts the individual at…

Research lines within the Pharmacy group:

In STAYAHEAD data-intensive approaches are being developed to ”decode the human immunome” with a focus on a global vaccine strategy. They have developed a rapid mass spectrometric test to analyse in real-time large numbers of variants of SARS-CoV-2 and the host immune response, and use these data to…

In case of serious illness, treatment in the Intensive Care Unit (IC) may be necessary. Intensive care treatments has improved over the years and more and more seriously ill patients are surviving admission to the ICU. This favorable development however has a downside since long-term consequences of…

This project seeks to integrate scientific research and practical knowledge in the study of the mechanisms that make dialogue an effective tool for communication, teaching, and thinking.

The Immune Activation and Tolerance group is headed by Dr. Bram Slütter. Vaccination is an experimental, but promising, treatment strategy for atherosclerosis. Previous work has shown that immunization of mice with modified LDL particles can reduce atherosclerotic lesion development, however such vaccines…

The Museums, Collections & Society (MCS) group consists of staff members, all of whom have a strong link to the Museums and Collections programme of the Faculty of Humanities and the Heritage and Museum programme of the Faculty of Archaeology.

Psycholinguistic research

Financialization has become the go-to term for scholars grappling with the growth of finance. This Handbook offers the first comprehensive survey of the scholarship on financialization, connecting finance with changes in politics, technology, culture, society and the economy.

The main interest of this project concerns learners’ perceived learning outcomes in massive open online courses and the factors related to their perceived learning outcomes.

Knowledge and culture subproject 2:

Higher design and engineering educators have different views on what a new or renewed curriculum should entail, content-wise as well as pedagogically. This research aims to describe how these ‘curriculum perspective perceptions’ influence working definitions, end goal formulation, and the scope of results…

Can small molecule drugs restore the immune system’s ability to fight tuberculosis by boosting autophagy?

Knowledge and culture subproject 3:

Key publications of the Quantitative Clinical Pharmacology group

Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) has a longstanding tradition in research in the world’s languages and features unique linguistic expertise. At LUCL, we help develop interdisciplinary approaches to linguistic phenomena by facilitating the interaction between data-driven and theory-driven…

Knowing how to resolve global problems is one thing, but how do you make sure that it actually happens? That’s the real challenge, because there are powerful movements everywhere that want to reconstruct the walls of nation states. In an attempt to resolve this issue, Leiden researchers are experimenting…

How did “free agents” (entrepreneurs operating outside of the myriad of interests of the centralized, state-sponsored monopolies) in Western Europe and the Ottoman Empire react to the creation of colonial monopolies (royal monopolies and chartered companies) by the central states in the Early Modern…

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…

The Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) is an internationally oriented institute for research and education in biology.

The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences brings together high-quality research and outstanding mono- and multidisciplinary teaching.

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

How do protein modifications work together to repair DNA, and what can we learn about these interactions to better understand disease?

The specialisation Educational Science focuses on the nature of educational contexts and learning processes of children and adolescents from a cognitive-psychological, social-emotional, and neuro-scientific perspective. Both general learning as well as learning in specific tasks (e.g., reading, science,…

Learn about the Institute’s mission, structure and academic community within Leiden University’s Faculty of Humanities.