Genes are active sometimes, and other times they remain dormant for a while. Leiden physicist John van Noort receives an NWO ECHO grant to find out how this happens.

Biophysicist Anjali Pandit has been awarded a FOM 'Projectruimte' research grant for her proposal ‘Tuning into the photosynthetic membrane with atomistic precision’.

On 22 January 2020, Annemarie Madani-Abbing will defend her dissertation 'Art Therapy & Anxiety'.

On 11 May 2016 a prestigious NWO Vidi grant (NWO's Innovation Research Incentives scheme) has been awarded to Nadia Soudzilovskaia for her research proposal entitled “Do mycorrhizal fungi mediate soil carbon fate?”, aimed to understand mycorrhizal impact on soil carbon sequestration.

Arthrosis needs a multidisciplinary approach, says Professor Jaap Harlaar. He brings experts from different university medical centres together to unravel the secrets of this condition and thus improve its treatment. This new Medical Delta professor was appointed as Professor of Clinical Biomechanics…

Dr. Kirsten Leiss and Prof. Peter Klinkhamer received 900.000 euro’s from “Stichting Toegepaste Wetenschappen (STW)” and the company “Rijk Zwaan” to develop plants that are resistant to thrips, a major agricultural pest all over the world.

Rosan Kuin started her PhD in July at the LACDR under supervision of prof. Gerard van Westen and Dr. Meindert Lamers. She completed a BSc. in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the VU University in Amsterdam in 2017. After that she started two master programs, Drug Discovery & Safety with a specialization in…

Despite considerable progress in the design of multifunctionalized nanoparticles (NPs) that selectively target specific cell types, their systemic application often results in unwanted liver accumulation. The exact mechanisms for this general observation are still unclear.

An all-optical transistor, a molecule-sized sensor and a new kind of single-photon source for quantum communication. All dreamed applications of fundamental physics that are one step closer thanks to Robert Smit. On 12 June, he defended his PhD thesis with distinction.

A delegation from Leiden University is visiting Brazil from 14 to 18 March. The first day of the visit was spent with scientists in São Paolo.

After seven years, Eric Eliel resigns as scientific director of the Leiden Institute of Physics (LION). On April 18th, LION hosts a farewell party and a week later Eliel will officially hand over his tasks to Jan Aarts. We spoke with him about his term as director, in which among others a new science…

Physicist Sense Jan van der Molen researches materials that do not exist in nature. ‘It’s fascinating to see how the properties of a material change if we manage to make it super thin.’ He will give his inaugural lecture on 21 October.

As of January 2022, Ivo van Vulpen has been Professor by Special Appointment of Science Communication at the Leiden Institute of Physics (LION). Van Vulpen will be researching science communication in general and will aim to underline the value and importance of science communication.

Ten Leiden researchers have been awarded a Veni grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The grant, of up to 280,000 euros, will enable them to elaborate their ideas over a period of three years.

Radio telescope LOFAR maps the sky. It produces incredibly detailed images of the universe - and vast amounts of data. Huub Röttgering, director of the Leiden Observatory, talks about the challenges of working with those enormous datasets.

For three years, Wouter Schuit enjoyed studying Technology, Policy and Management at Delft University of Technology - only to switch to a master's in Philosophy in Leiden after his bachelor's. 'In both, you learn to tackle a problem in a structured way.'

To stay secure, the transatlantic community must take on emerging and disruptive technologies together.

Dong Guo was awarded two poster prizes for his poster ‘Molecular Mechanism of Allosteric modulation at G protein-coupled Receptors: Insight from a Binding Kinetics Study at the Human A1 Adenosine Receptor’ at the FIGON Dutch Medicines Days, October 6th-8th this year.

World wide press attention for the article and specifically the image of the 30 micrometer long micro boat 3DBenchy by Rachel Doherty, Daniela Kraft and other Leiden physicists.

Last week Professor of Animal Behaviour Carel ten Cate was interviewed about intelligent birds, in response to the recent publication of his book 'Avian Cognition' by NPO1.

On 15 and 16 May, Vestert Borger participated in the conference ‘Governing through funding in the EU’. The conference was organised by Lilian Tsourdi and Marijn van der Sluis, who are both affiliated with Maastricht University.

Nadia Soudzilovskaia (CML), Martijn Bezemer (IBL / NIOO) and Harrie van der Hagen (ecologist at Dunea) gave an interview to NPO1 Radio about the TERRA-Dunes project.

KWR Watercycle Research Institute and the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University are collaborating in the area of social impact.

In Dutch magazine De Psycholoog, Anne-Laura van Harmelen talks about the impact traumatic experiences, especially for those who are growing up.

Could ketogenic therapy change the future of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) treatment? Bret Scher sits down with Eline Dekeyster to explore how nutritional ketosis may support individuals with autism and other brain-based conditions.

Science Magazine has published three back-to-back papers on an important discovery in solid state physics. Leiden physicist Jan Zaanen wrote a Perspective article on the subject in the same issue of 4 March.

The Leiden Institute of Physics hosted the annual conference of the Dutch Vacuum Society (NEVAC). Experts in the field of vacuum experiments talked about their research. The 2016 NEVAC Prize was awarded to PhD student Martijn Vos from the TU Eindhoven.

In their quest for materials that conduct electricity without resistance at moderate temperatures, scientists usually work on their chemical make-up. Now Leiden physicists have come up with a radically new approach: pinching holes in a periodic pattern. Publication in SciPost.

Electrons that spin synchronously around their axis, turn out to stay superconducting across large distances within magnetic chromium dioxide. Electric current from these electrons can flip small magnets, and its superconducting version could form the basis for a hard drive without energy loss. Publication…

The Rutte IV cabinet will be sworn in soon. A fifth of the prospective ministers and secretaries of state studied in Leiden. Who are they and what did they study?

Working on superconductivity, finding an exoplanet or learning how to program with Python. More than one hundred girls visited Leiden University on Thursday 13 February during the Girls in Science Day.

Two Leiden physicists took part in the Lindau conference in Germany from 26 June to 1 July. They met Nobel prize winners from their field.

On 29 and 30 November, Masaryk University in Brno (Czech Republic) hosted this year’s Cyberspace conference, where Gavin workshopped a paper-in-progress entitled ‘Ready! Fire! Aim? EU law’s battle for relevance in the war against terrorist content online’.

The particle accelerator of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, produces large amounts of complex data with high accuracy, as a result of which theoretical predictions also need to be more accurate and faster. With his research team, PhD candidate Ben Ruijl developed very innovative…

Electric noise can be useful for scientists but inconvenient for chip manufacturers. They do share a wish to predict the amount of noise. PhD student Sumit Tewari overturns a century-old law relating noise to current. He defends his thesis on March 27th.

This event is in Dutch. De Verenigde Naties hebben 11 februari uitgeroepen tot International Day of Women & Girls in Science. De Universiteit Leiden viert deze dag met een open publieksevenement met vrouwelijke topwetenschappers van haar bètafaculteit. Iedereen is welkom vanaf 13:30 uur in het Kamerlingh…

STM scanning experiments on poorly conducting materials are challenging, and can cause a distortion effect. A new model corrects for this effect, allowing physicists to better study materials in their quest to understand unconventional superconductivity. Publication in Physical Review B as Editor’s…

Sander Blok has won the third edition of the annual LION Image Award. He created a colorful image of gold nanoparticles with a low-energy electron microscope.

If computers work on superconducting current, they won’t consume any energy. Leiden physicists have now gained control over a new type of superconducting memory elements. Publication in Nature Communications.

On 26 April Professor of Experimental Physics Jan van Ruitenbeek was made a Knight in the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands. He received the decoration from mayor Emile Jaensch in Oegstgeest, where he lives. Van Ruitenbeek received the honour for his services to physics.

A collaboration of physicists and chemists organized the LEELIS conference on new computer chip technology in Amsterdam on 10-11 November. Leiden physicist Joost Frenken is director of the organizing institute ARCNL.

The ERC has awarded a Starting Grant to five promising researchers from Leiden. Two are from the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, one is from the Faculty of Humanities/Governance and Global Affairs, one from the LUMC and one from the Faculty of Science.

You check out Facebook to see if one of your friends or someone in your family has done something interesting. Your attention is drawn to a holiday advert. That’s a coincidence, you think, because just before you went to Facebook you had been searching internet for a holiday destination. But this is…

‘To be honest, I knew very little about the Netherlands when I arrived in 1998. But studying law in Leiden was a very enriching experience.’ Nathalie van den Berge grew up in a number of different European countries, and now works at a UN office in Tanzania, where she lives with her Dutch husband and…

In an Advance Online Publication biophysicist John van Noort and others show using magnetic tweezers that DNA is folded in compliant helices of chromatin. This allows enzymes access to the DNA needed for gene expression. Van Noort's research group made the discovery in close partnership with researchers…

Although sugars are widely used in biological and medical research, their synthesis is still badly understood. Jeroen Codée has received a Vici grant of 1.5 million euros for systematically studying the production of sugars. ‘I want to genuinely understand the reactions.’

Nano-plastics cause malformations. Meiru Wang, researcher at the Institute of Biology Leiden, looked at the extreme effects polystyrene nano-particles could have, using chicken embryos as a model. Her results were quite alarming. Especially as nano-particles are everywhere. In the air, floating through…

Human cells are protecting their proteins from unfolding and aggregating. That's what biophysicist Alireza Mashaghi and his team discovered after seven years of in-depth research into the folding mechanisms of proteins. With an unprecedented approach, the team was able to study the folding of a single…

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded chemist Dr Alexander Kros a Starting Independent Researcher Grant of 1.4 million euro. He will be using the grant to study how molecules penetrate the natural barrier of a cell membrane. If his research is successful, it will in time bring about a revolution…

Parents’ talk about new stimuli such as persons or objects strongly affects how avoidant or fearful their child will react. No stronger effect was found when parents had an anxiety disorder or in children with fearful temperaments. Publication by a team of Leiden psychologists in 'Clinical Child and…