Bringing your drug candidates to patients is what many academic chemists dream about, but the road to this goal is long and bumpy. Now, Leiden small molecule nizubaglustat is ready for phase 3 clinical trials. This is thanks to a €132 million funding secured by the biotech spin-out Azafaros.

Professor Miguel John Versluys of Leiden University has been recognised with the esteemed Humboldt Research Award, a testament to his groundbreaking work in global archaeology, reception-studies and the deep history of globalisation. The award, granted by the Alexander von Humbold-Stiftung, celebrates…

From 1 October onwards, Dennis Claessen and Marcel Schaaf will be the new directors of education of Biology. They will replace Han de Winde. Schaaf will be responsible for the bachelor, while Claessen will mainly focus on the master tracks of Biology. We gave students and the education office the change…

An overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2020, as well as special appointments at Leiden University and other institutions.

Leiden PhD candidate Jo-Anne Verschoor discovered that nearly twenty percent of the bacterial strains she studied could degrade plastic, though they needed some encouragement to do so. ‘Bacteria are just like people,’ says Verschoor. Her research was published in the journal Communications Biology,…

The Dutch X-omics Initiative has received seventeen million euros from NWO as part of the National Roadmap for Large-Scale Infrastructure. Leiden University’s metabolomics research led by Thomas Hankemeier is one of the participators.

Farmers on the outskirts of Nairobi National Park protect their livestock using flashing lights on top of the animal enclosures. This system keeps lions away at night. Leiden research has shown that the method is both simple and effective. Publication in PLOS ONE.

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).

‘This trip gives you the chance to experience at first hand what you learn about in your study programme,’ says Lars Moll, third-year student of Middle Eastern Studies, and one of the students who joined the April excursion to Istanbul organised by Professor Hans Theunissen from Leiden's Department…

The distinguished academic journal Science published an article about an important and extensive series of measurements made by the Centre for Isotope Research (CIO) of the University of Groningen. The measurements concern the dating of a lake bed sediment in the Suigetsu Lake in Japan.

Leiden and Jülich researchers discovered an elegant and simple approach to improve the sensitivity of graphene biosensors. These so-called ‘next generation graphene electronic biochemical sensor devices’ are able to detect very low amounts of HIV DNA thanks to their very low electronic noise.

On the 1st of October a new project funded by the Joint Industry Programme (JIP) started at the IBL on the potentially negative effects of sound on fish. Behavioural biologist and bioacoustic specialist Dr. Hans Slabbekoorn leads the international research team.

The challenge: Building a tool to detect chemical compounds that individually cause non-lethal stress to bacteria, but that are lethal in combination. A team of thirteen Leiden students are taking up this challenge in the annual ‘international Genetically Engineered Machine’ (iGEM) competition for applications…

On 16 June, Leiden University opens the MIGRADROME: a unique, seven-metre-long artificial river. Researchers will use it to study how light and sound affect migratory fish. ‘We’re recreating a real river, but under fully controlled conditions.’

Researchers at Leiden University have made a breakthrough in the study of the hereditary Pompe disease. Together with colleagues in York, they have developed a molecule that binds to the enzyme that is key to the progress of the disease. The findings have been published in ACS Central Science.

The year is 2032 and the Arctic ice cap has melted causing new trade routes to emerge. This case is the focal point of the Young Diplomat Conference during which honours participants spend a weekend as diplomats solving disputes between countries.

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.

At the OWL faculty day about 150 newcomers met their fellow students and had a chance to check out the study and research facilities at the Faculty of Science. The OWL introduction week is specially for new international bachelor’s and master’s students at Leiden University.

I think we should go this way. This way! THIS! WAY!! Making yourself heard in a city can be difficult. That is not only the case for humans, but birds seem to be hindered by urban noise as well. Researcher Hans Slabbekoorn of Leiden University already showed that great tits in Leiden communicate differently…

Ominous witches, gruesome monsters, and hideous freaks: from Saturday 15 June, Kunsthal Rotterdam will be putting the spotlight on the shady depths of human imagination in the exhibition Hello darkness, my old friend. Seventy works on paper from the collection of the Leiden University Libraries confront…

Proactive zebrafish appear to have a much stronger wake-sleep rhythm than reactive fish. In the most reactive fish, rhythmicity appears to be lacking completely. This is shown with research by Leiden biologists, published in December 2018 in the journal BMC Biology.

In honour of 10 years of cooperation between Kenya Wildlife Service and Leiden University, a Leiden delegation visited Nairobi National Park. To cement the cooperation, a lion in the park was collared and named Karel, which in Dutch literally means ‘free man.’ It will be monitored through satellite…

When you want to analyse big quantities of archaeological data, you run into the issue that searching through excavation reports is extremely time-consuming. If only there existed a search engine specifically focused on querying these reports… But wait, work on an archaeological search engine focused…

Researchers from Leiden and Delft have found a way to look inside early-modern bookbindings. An x-ray technique has allowed them to search for remains of medieval manuscripts hidden inside the bindings. After the Middle Ages many manuscripts were recycled, their pages pasted inside bookbindings to provide…

Professor of Catalysis and Surface Chemistry Marc Koper has been appointed as member of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (KNAW). 'Very honourable, I see this as a confirmation of my work,’ says Koper.

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.

After three (or four) years of hard study, there are every year a lot of Bachelor students that say goodbye to go and explore the wide world. Where are they going next? And what will they miss most about our beautiful city? For the coming weeks, we will tell the stories of 6 recent Bachelor graduates…

On 21 June, our beloved colleague Joan van der Waals passed away after a long and rewarding life.

Dr Alex Geurds was elected as a Fellow for the Society of Antiquaries, a prestigious and old educational charity based in London. Established in 1707, the society aims at the encouragement and advancement of the study and knowledge of the antiquities.

Voor deze use case zoeken wij een gebruiker die voor onderzoeksdoeleinden interesse heeft in de auteursrechtelijk beschermde collectie van de KB en ons kan helpen met het opstellen door wensen, noden en ervaringen te delen.

Gert Oostindie, Emeritus Professor of Colonial and Postcolonial History, is this year’s Cleveringa Professor at Leiden University. He was appointed by the University on 4 October. In his inaugural lecture on 24 November, entitled Courage and Disregard, he will talk about (academic) freedom in relation…

Gijs van der Velden has one of the best study results in his first college year of all science studies. With that, he won the Young Talent Incentive award and received 500 euros of the Koninklijke Hollandse Maatschappij der Wetenschappen (KHMW). The biology student remains quite nonchalantly. ‘Of course,…

On May 15th, from 15.15 to 17.00 in the Vossiusroom, Leiden University Libraries will host a program on web-archiving and digital archives of Chinese communities in the Netherlands and Indonesia.

The Office of Leiden University in Indonesia has a vacancy for an Academic Staff Member and University Lecturer for LDE (Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities)

Do you want to show that sustainability and business can work well together? And are you ready for a challenge? If so, you can sign up for the Sustainable Business Battle, a six-week business case challenge in which teams of students help companies find innovative and sustainable solutions.

Postdoc and linguist Evelyn Bosma receives the Keetje Hodshon Prize for her dissertation. For her research on the multilingualism of Frisian children, Bosma previously won the Klokhuis Science Prize and the Campus Fryslân Science Prize.

Who will be our Discoverer of the year 2017? Which one of these brilliant researchers deserves this prize for their efforts according to you? As of now, you can cast your vote.

The annual Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA) conference is the most important scientific event in the field of digital archaeology.

From 7 to 8 June 2018 Leiden will host the annual 'Politicologenetmaal'. Political scientists active in The Netherlands and Belgium will convene in and around the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences to discuss important themes and developments in the field. Registration for this conference is…

Since 2014 church organ player Paul Houdijk has been working on his PhD project on the musical and aesthetic developments of the Dutch 19th-century church organ builder Michael Maarschalkerweerd.

The Faculty of Science of Leiden University and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) signed an exchange agreement on Tuesday. This Erasmus+ student mobility agreement allows all students of the Faculty of Science and DTU students to follow courses at both universities from September 2017 on.

The Skandapurāṇa Project considers fieldwork to be essential to the study of purāṇic religious topography and the understanding of the socio-political milieu in which the Skandapurāṇa was composed and disseminated.

From 1 to 2 June 2017 Leiden University hosts the annual 24-hour Political Science Conference (‘Politicologenetmaal’). This event will bring together political scientists and practitioners from Flanders and The Netherlands, who will participate in several workshops to discuss subjects like elections,…

The seminar is dedicated to the work-in-progress of Leiden Centre for Continental Philosophy staff and doctoral students. The paper is sent in advance and discussed in the meeting. On 18.2 and 22.4. the seminar is proud to host guest speakers. We warmly encourage all interested people to participate…

Marjolein Soethoudt was awarded the Unilever Research Prize 2013 for the University of Leiden. The prize was bestowed upon her because of her thesis about her 9-months Master’s internship that she performed in the department from September 2011 until July 2012, in combination with her other study re…

From 1 October, two new Directors of Education will start at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL). Dennis Claessen as the new director for the master's programme of Biology and Marcel Schaaf as director for the Biology bachelor's programme. Claessen and Schaaf have been appointed for a period of four…

At a recent meeting, the leaders of the European Union formally approved Ukraine and Moldova’s candidate status to join the bloc. The message is: you are welcome to join our European family in due course.

Constant Hijzen, assistant professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA), spoke about the Law on intelligence and security services in the NRC. In the column ‘Twistgesprek’ (dispute) of the NRC Hijzen has a written conversation with the director of Bits for Freedom, Hans de Zwart,…

No, the Netherlands is not a tax haven, the new State Secretary for Tax Affairs Marnix van Rij said shortly after his introductory meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Rutte. Yet there are numerous reports that describe the Netherlands' role as a tax haven.

The Leidse Instrumentenmakers School (LiS) has received the Leiden erepenning—an honorary medal that is awarded each year during the celebration of the Leids Ontzet to a person or institute that has done a great service to the city of Leiden.