The student weekly diary of Archaeology/Egyptology students, 2025.

The student weekly diary of Archaeology/Egyptology students, 2026.

'It gave our team a big boost to hear that our work was valuable,' says medical chemist Elmer Maurits about the moment they won the Venture Challenge. With their company Iprotics, they want to develop a drug that can better treat patients with autoimmune diseases and blood cancers. 25,000 euros of prize…

If spending three years at university and following the entire Dutch Studies programme is not an option for you, we offer an alternative. We have created a challenging one-year programme in which you will learn to speak Dutch and delve into Dutch culture. This programme is less comprehensive, and allows…

The opening of the Academic Year 2025-2026 took place on Monday 1 September 2025 in the Pieterskerk church.

There are millions of gene clusters that encode the biosynthesis of bioactive natural products, with the vast majority yet unknown. How can we prioritize them to discover new chemical space for antibiotics? For this we will set up a pipeline based on federated learning (AI), synthetic biology and bioactivity…

Most employed and contract PhD candidates at the Faculty of Archaeology follow a 4-year PhD track in a full-time position.

Director: Dr. Fred Leemhuis

Visit an exhibition, a concert or learn to paint.

In this part of the LUC Newsletter Archive you can find the newsletters of block 3 and 4 of academic year 2019 - 2020.

Academic ceremony

A breakthrough from the PhD research of medical chemist Elmer Maurits may help patients with autoimmune diseases and blood cancer in the future. But bringing a discovery from the lab to the clinic is not so easily done. Thanks to NWO's Venture Challenge, Maurits and his team will receive ten weeks of…

Visitors to Leiden's City Hall and the University Library can visit the 444 Years of Leiden University exhibition from 25 January.

Two Leiden researchers have been awarded ERC Proof of Concept grants. These grants, each worth EUR 150,000, will help the grantees in their efforts to bridge the gap from basic science to real-life applications

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

In the research programme Microbial Sciences we perform state-of-the-art research in the field of biotechnology and microbial sciences.

In this work, we attempt to answer the question:

Chemical biology research at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry is aimed at understanding biological processes at the molecular level to strengthen the knowledge base of human health and disease. The approach to achieve this goal is a fundamental chemical one; with the aid of chemical probes biological…

Biologist Freek Vonk had already appeared in the Time Warp programme, where he was shown milking a snake for its venom, which he needed for his doctoral research. On Friday 18 September, he explained his fascination for snakes to Matthijs van Nieuwkerk in ‘De wereld draait door’, a Dutch news and entertainment…

In the summer of 2010, a special archaeological find resurfaced when plans to redevelop the Paardenmarkt, a parking lot in the historic city center of Alkmaar, began.

Where exactly on the surface of a catalyst do the chemical reactions occur? Until now, it has always been a challenge to identify the exact locations of these ‘active sites’. In a new article in Nature, Leiden chemists helped their international colleagues reveal new insights into this issue. Their…

From a successful April Fool’s prank and alumni love stories to a fabulous float on 3 Octobe: these were the highlights of our year on our social media channels. Hope you’re following us?

In 2019 Leiden University was 444 years old. This special birthday called for a special celebration. We celebrated this milestone with the residents of Leiden and The Hague. In, with and for these two cities.

Leiden University College (LUC), an institute of Leiden University in The Hague – the international city of peace, justice, and security – offers the English-taught Bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences: Global Challenges since 2010. Inspired by the American university college model, LUC combines…

Leiden University College (LUC), an institute of Leiden University in The Hague – the international city of peace, justice, and security – offers the English-taught Bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences: Global Challenges since 2010. Inspired by the American university college model, LUC combines…

Ahead of the times? We’ve been that for over 450 years.

Designing and synthesizing high-affinity ligands for a given drug target have always been among the more important challenges in the drug discovery process.

In this thesis, the discovery and optimization is described of chemical tools to study the N-acylethanolamine (NAE) biosynthetic pathway.

These awards honour researchers who turn scientific insight into real-world impact. From master’s students to postdocs, they highlight exceptional work in life sciences, health sciences, biotech, or environmental health sciences with data science at the core. Meet the 2025 winners.

Knowledge and culture subproject 4:

How can we make the information in handwritten historical research reports accessible and searchable? Data scientists at Leiden University are working with other universities on a method that will improve access to cultural heritage.

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).

Many metalloenzymes that are key to bioenergetics are membrane enzymes, with canonical examples the complexes I, II, III and IV in the mitochondrial inner membrane. To study these enzymes in a native-like lipid membrane environment, we aim to develop novel bioelectrochemical techniques.

Physicists at the Leiden Institute of Physics (LION) conduct fundamental research into physical phenomena. They are inspired by curiosity and the desire to know more about the world in which we live. This research has always paved the way for new practical applications. These are something that the…

The genesis of the golden boy-king mythos as exhibited between 1922 and 2022 in relation to Egyptological development with a focus on Dutch reception

The 50th Top 450 entry has now been published. In the run-up to the university’s 450th anniversary, we are compiling our Top 450. What is your favourite?

The European Research council (ERC) was founded ten years ago today. The ERC is an important agency for research funding, including to Leiden University.

Leiden researchers, led by Sebastian Pomplun developed a new method to screen hundreds of thousands of molecules for drug discovery, using mass spectrometry instead of DNA tags. ‘We wanted to make drug discovery faster and more accessible.’

How many men and women die per year at the hands of others? What are the motives behind these killings? Are there as many homicides today as years ago? How can we explain the rise and fall of homicides over time? And: What is the influence of (early) childhood and adolescence on the likelihood to commit…

One discovered that arteriosclerosis resembles an autoimmune disease, while the other developed a system to aid in the search for new medications. For these achievements, Marie Depuydt and Jurren de Groot were awarded the Krijn Rietveld Memorial Innovation Award on the evening of Tuesday 4 June.

Promotor: A.P. IJzerman

200 years ago, in 1818, Caspar Reuvens was appointed Professor in Archaeology at Leiden University. This was effectively the start of the academic study of archaeology in the Netherlands. To celebrate this occasion, the faculty organises events related to the future of archaeology throughout the yea…