In the Drug Research theme, we primarily work with rodents. Rodents, such as mice, are one of the most common laboratory animals. These small mammals are easily housed and exhibit a rapid rate of reproduction.

How are new drugs developed? This question is central to the Minor Modern Drug Discovery (MDD), which covers the entire trajectory from disease to drug molecule and vice versa. The various research groups involved offer a complementary and interdisciplinary perspective by connecting the diverse subjects…

In the research programme Drug Discovery & Safety, we are interested in the efficacy and safety of new drugs and novel means to decipher these aspects. Hence, we employ advanced imaging and high-throughput screening techniques next to computational approaches such as chem- and bioinformatics.

Our research in the area of safety sciences aims to increase the mechanistic understanding of cellular toxicity of drugs and, in a broader sense, chemicals.

We focus on a better understanding of the mechanisms of cancer drug resistance and metastasis.

Drug-related homicide (DRH) has the potential to act as a valuable indicator of wider drug-related crime. Yet DRH remains a knowledge gap within this broader field of study.

Research in this group, headed by Gerard van Westen, focusses on computational methods integrated in different parts of the drug discovery process. More specifically, topics include innovative treatments for cancer, selectivity modeling, translational research, allosteric modulation, drug resistance…

The drug discovery pipeline is used to describe the stages in drug discovery. The earliest stage concerns with the identification of potential targets and molecules ('hits') that can modulate their function, while more advanced stages are about developing these hits into viable experimental drugs and…

Science, Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR)

In this research group, headed by Prof. Erik Danen, the aim is to unravel cellular signaling mechanisms in normal and diseased cells, with a long-standing interest in cell adhesion signaling. In complex multicellular organisms such as ourselves, a division of labor emerges where different tissues and…

Improving healthcare with our scientific discoveries: that is the goal of pharmaceutical research at Leiden University. And there’s a lot involved in that. Our research starts with the discovery of the effect achieved by a particular substance, and sometimes continues all the way through to the development…

New or improved treatments for chronic and acute illness.

Mechanisms fro drug resistance

Despite recent advances in medicine, many devastating disorders like cancer and cardiovascular, neurodegenerative and infectious diseases still lack effective treatments. In order to address this challenge, we, as scientists from Leiden University, joined hands in the LED3 network. LED3, for Leiden…

There are many complex links in the chain that provides patients with new drugs: from fundamental science, to clinical tests, to production. The entire chain can be found in Leiden. Leiden University, the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and the businesses at the Leiden Bio Science Park (LBSP)…

The research within the Division of Cell Systems and Drug Safety, headed by Prof. Bob van de Water, is focused on novel therapeutic modalities and novel concepts in early drug discovery, in order to develop more effective and safer therapeutic strategies. We generate advanced cell and computational…

In this research group, headed by Bob Van de Water, cell signaling programs that underlie adverse drug reactions as well as cancer development and progression are unraveled. Adverse drug reactions involve cell injury in critical target organ cells which leads to the activation of cellular stress response…

Can drugs that target host signaling pathways be used to eradicate antibiotic-resistant bacteria?

We cover the entire spectrum from target identification to the evaluation of the efficacy and safety of novel medicines in clinical practice.

To get a feeling of how we operate at LED3 when it comes to Early Drug Discovery, please browse through our case studies. When you select a case study you’ll find relevant contacts.

The Data-Driven Drug Discovery Network (D4N) is an initiative by researchers from Leiden University and collaborators to join efforts in applying and developing novel techniques from data science to drug discovery and related topics from bioinformatics.

Hospital pharmacies face significant challenges: the demand for sterile drug reconstitutions is increasing, while specialized personnel remain scarce. Automation offers a potential solution, but its practical implementation in hospitals is still unclear.

Supervisor: Indira Nederpelt

Drug-target binding kinetics determine the time course of the central event in pharmacotherapy: Drug-target interaction.

Is is possible to better predict the validity of drug candidates?

The Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) is a centre of excellence for multidisciplinary research on drug discovery and development.

High-throughput holistic preclinical screens are increasingly used in drug discovery, to assess both drug efficacy and drug safety.

A next, general pharmacological problem to be tackled is how drug-target binding kinetics in vivo, affects target occupancy as an important indicator of the time-course of drug effects.

Discovery of metastasis promoting candidate drug targets

Harm reduction in practice: a comparative analysis of the Dutch and Brazilian approach towards drug users.

Citizens in multiple crime-ridden countries strongly support the militarization of security—that is, placing the military in charge of traditional policing duties. Yet, we know little about the determinants of such support. Do people approve of militarization even in the face of human fatalities? Political…

In previous studies at our laboratory it was demonstrated that drug exposure of HepG2 cells can lead to an altered TNFα-induced NF-κB oscillatory phenotype, concurrent with a synergistically increased sensitivity for TNFα-induced apoptosis.

Over several decades, a variety of computational methods for drug discovery have been proposed and applied in practice. With the accumulation of data and the development of machine learning methods, computational drug design methods have gradually shifted to a new paradigm, i.e. deep learning methods…

Promotor: Prof.dr. B. van de Water, Co-promotor: L.S. Price

In the last decades, activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) has emerged as a powerful chemical tool that may aid the ever-challenging drug discovery process.

Promotor: M. Danhof Co-promotor: O.E. Della Pasqua

The Minor Computational Approaches to Disease, Signaling and Drug Targets (CADSDT) is focused on fundamental scientific research required for discovery of new drug targets and development of new drugs.

PhD defence

This thesis focuses on the application of lipid-based nanomedicine in drug delivery, including small molecular antitumor drugs and biomacromolecules including mRNA, and evaluates their biological performance.

Can we develop a generic method for Quan/Qual analysis of small molecule drugs, their metabolites and endogenous metabolites in (pre-)clinical samples?

Another research line is the development of a spatial CNS drug distribution model, by ultimately including the 3-dimensional anatomical organization of the CNS.

Although rarely considered by the pharmaceutical industry or clinicians, 24-hour rhythms in physiology are a factor of potential influence on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of drugs.

How can we extend the drug residence time to combat diseases more effectively?

This thesis describes the importance of being able to control the selectivity of potential drug candidates.

Can effective synergists be identified to enhance the effect of antibiotics against Gram negative pathogens?

Heart failure is a major health care problem with high mortality.

Source: ChemMedChem (2015)

Data analysis with Python and R are rapidly becoming essential skills for modern scientists. Therefore, we are offering courses to develop your scientific computing skills. Those courses are optional for LACDR PhD candidates.

Human and animal cells are very complex: very different chemical processes are going on at the same time, but they are separated from each other because the cells are divided in compartments. These compartments may also have a profound effect on the potential efficacy of therapeutics, because the drug…

A novel mathematical model describes spatial-temporal drug distribution within one or more brain units, which are cubic representations of a piece of brain tissue with brain capillaries at the edges.