Patients with the same illness often receive the same treatment, even if the cause of the illness is different for each person. This represents a new step towards ultimately being able to offer every patient more personalised treatment.

Better links with the job market, diversity, quality of education, student well-being and free coffee. All these are issues that the student parties taking part in the University elections will be fighting for. The candidates are keen to tell you a bit about themselves. Between 9 May and 13 May you…

Parkinson's disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease in the world. One of its symptoms is the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta.

Some 5000 years ago the people of the corded ware culture exchanged ideas about death on a continental scale. There were strong gender differences in these ideas: men were buried in an international style, and women in a local style. This discovery was made by archaeologist Quentin Bourgeois.

In the Netherlands, 1.55 million people suffer from cardiovascular diseases. Yet, acute cardiovascular events, such as a heart attack or stroke, often occur unexpectedly. That is because many people do not know they are at risk for such an event. Immunological researcher Amanda Foks and her colleagues…

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…

The central theme of the NWO-project ‘The Promise of Organization’ is the evolution of political organization during the 19th century. We focus on the enthusiasm, arguments and concrete activities of the organizers as well as the criticism offered by opponents of modern political organization.

We would like to draw your attention to the following advertisement which was originally disseminated by the Dutch Breast Cancer Foundation, in collaboration with Leiden University

Due to the increasing resistance to certain antibiotics, the life-threatening condition sepsis is becoming harder to treat. For her PhD project, Leiden pharmacologist Feiyan Liu used mathematical modeling to find out how antibiotics can be used more effectively to cure sepsis.

On 22 January, Annemarie Madani-Abbing will defend her dissertation 'Art therapy and anxiety' regarding her research into the effectiveness of anthroposophic art therapy in treating anxiety in women. We asked her about her research and what it was like to combine a job outside academia with studying…

A theoretical project on the insights gained by human (including infant), nonhuman animal and computational studies on artificial grammar learning; identifying the critical questions for future research by developing novel experimental and computational approaches to address these issues.

For a long time, bird song was considered as a typical male trait. But over the last twenty years, research has shown that a lot of female songbirds sing as well. Female scientists turned out to be the key factor in these findings, amongst others from the Institute of Biology Leiden.

Alireza Mashaghi and his research team have created a new framework to understand shapes of proteins and DNA. With this framework, many diseases can be understood better.

Every year, an NWO PhD in the Humanities grant is awarded to a prospective PhD candidate at the Faculty of Archaeology. This year, the grant went to Maia Casna, enabling her to study respiratory disease in the past. ‘My hypothesis is that the rapid formation of cities in the medieval Netherlands, must…

The Dutch National Student Orchestra will be going on tour again in February. Before that, they will have ten days of rehearsals. The level is high and taking part means a total immersion in music.

Mapping of bacterial genomes to combat infectious diseases

Two statues of gorillas abducting women: they were what led PhD candidate Dick van Broekhuizen to write a new type of history of nineteenth-century sculpture. ‘If you view nineteenth-century art history from a less narrow perspective, the narrative changes completely.’ PhD ceremony on 21 June.

The Aging and Immunity group is led by Dr. Amanda Foks. In this group we aim to investigate how aged immune cells contribute to atherosclerosis and identify novel therapeutic targets and strategies to extend health span and inhibit cardiovascular disease.

Although both government and the public would like scientists to share their work with the widest possible audience, this does not always seem an easy route for scientists.

Can thrips resistance in strawberry be explained based on secondary metabolite profiles and plant morphological traits?

We aim to engineer streptomycetes to fully exploit their potential for natural product productions, by a rational design and evolution approach.

How is vegetative development regulated in plants and how does this affect a plant’s life history strategy?

Marlien van Mever delved into the analysis of tiny samples, cerebrospinal fluid from transgenic mouse models for example. She validated methods that can now be used to study brain diseases such as migraine and epilepsy. Van Mever will receive her PhD on 14 June.

Fake news about ‘patient zero’ and hyperbolic headlines warning about the ‘yellow peril.’ Leiden researchers have spotted fake news galore about coronavirus as well as racial stereotypes about the Chinese. How harmful is this?

Cardiovascular diseases are among the most frequent causes of death in the world. The main underlying pathology of cardiovascular diseases is the development of atherosclerosis in the medium and large-sized arteries.

The studies described in this thesis deal with glycosidases, in particular alpha-galactosidases.

Anti-establishment parties with populist appeal have become part and parcel of the political landscape in many European countries. Some of these parties are more successful than others. PhD candidate Tomáš Cirhan studied the rapid rise of ANO, the party of Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš. He concludes…

Now the election results are in, how should we interpret them? Time to call Associate Professor in Political Science Tom Louwerse.

The aim is to develop methods to assess environmental and occupational exposure to (individual) pesticides, to be applied in epidemiological studies investigating pesticide exposure and human health. Furthermore, we aim to investigate the potential association between exposure to pesticides and Parkinson’s…

Cryptographer Max Fillinger developed new methods to analyse a group of algorithms called commitments schemes. These schemes are building blocks for cryptographic protocols, which enable multiple parties that do not trust each other to work together safely. His PhD Defence is on 19 March.

Political scientist Simon Otjes (Leiden University) receives a grant from The Dutch Research Council (NWO). The grant is part of the SGW Open Competition XS, which aims to stimulate innovative scientific research within the Social Sciences and Humanities domain. Otjes receives the grant for his research…

The United Nations (UN) made history in October 2000 when Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) was unanimously adopted.

Promotores: Prof.dr. J. Kuiper, Prof.dr. P.H.A. Quax

On Friday 9 December, Renate van der Zee and professor Marieke Liem held a lecture on 'Visible and invisible violence against women' at the Campus The Hague.

What Accounts for the Variety of National Policy Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Europe?

In recent decades, women in Japan and South Korea have been catching up in terms of educational achievements and economic activity. Yet the number of women in leadership positions is still lagging behind. PhD candidate Yorum Beekman investigated why this is.

How can zebrafish models be used to gain a better understanding of host-pathogen interaction mechanisms and to screen new drugs for infectious disease treatment?

Alumna Tiziana Lippiello became the first female rector magnificus of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice last year. In this way, she hopes to contribute to emancipation in the academic world: 'We need more women here.'

How can Staphylococcus aureus bacteria subvert the host immune system?

There is greater variety in the size of men’s brains than of women’s. This could help explain why some psychiatric disorders such as ADHD and autism are more prevalent in boys. Leiden brain researcher Lara Wierenga has published an article about this in the international journal Cerebral Cortex.

How can cell wall engineering approaches be used to improve streptomycetes for industry to make new antibiotics?

Female and male songbirds sing equally elaborate songs in some species, but in others, females do not sing like males or not at all. How did such pronounced differences in male and female communication evolve?

We aim to unravel the complex and intertwining regulatory systems that control development and antibiotic production in streptomycetes.

On Saturday 9 February 2019 we celebrated the International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2019 in Leiden! View the photos of this festive day, with contributions from Robbert Dijkgraaf and Ewine van Dishoeck, and numerous fascinating workshops and exciting experiments.

The elections for the Leiden University Student Council and Faculty Councils are coming up, starting on the 17th of May!