Drug development is hampered by the limited predictive value of conventional 2D culture systems, which fail to recapitulate the complexity of the disease microenvironment and contribute to high clinical attrition rates.

Environmental scientists Stefano Cucurachi and Paul Behrens and astronomer Jorryt Matthee have received prizes during the New Year's reception of the Faculty of Science on Tuesday 8 January. In addition, Kavli Prize winner Ewine van Dishoeck announced a new award.

The opening of the Academic Year 2019-2020 took place on Monday 2 September 2019 in Pieterskerk church.

De opening of the Academic Year 2021-2022 took place on Monday 6 September 2021 in Pieterskerk church.

The opening of the Academic Year 2024-2025 took place on Monday 2 September 2024 in the Pieterskerk church.

The opening of the Academic Year 2017-2018 took place on Monday 4 September 2017 in Pieterskerk church.

De opening of the Academic Year 2023-2024 took place on Monday 4 September 2023 in Pieterskerk church.

De opening of the Academic Year 2022-2023 took place on Monday 5 September 2022 in Pieterskerk church.

In a new video lecture (in English) on Universiteit van Nederland, astrophycisist Yamila Miguel tells us about the discovery of the most bizarre planets outside of our solar system.

Discover the outstanding researchers and educators recognised by our faculty. This page gives an overview of all prize winners.

The opening of the Academic Year 2018-2019 took place on Monday 3 September 2018 in Pieterskerk church.

A full overview of MacBio PhD Theses.

Through metabolism, biochemical processes give rise to the complexity of life. Acquired and inborn errors in metabolism underlie many diseases occurring in man. The challenge for present day medical biochemistry is to find, and integrate, pieces of information at molecular, cell and organismal level…

This long term project in Jordan is at the basis of many specialists’ studies and has several off-shoot projects. The project, with its many approaches, is also a framework for much teaching in Levantine Archaeology at Leiden University, especially concerning fieldwork methods, artefact studies, research…

Leiden University opened its doors in 1575 – the very first university in the Netherlands. The law faculty was involved from the start and so in 2025 they, too, were celebrating their 450th anniversary.

This volume contributes to the scholarly debate regarding the reception of Cicero and focuses on one particular moment in Cicero’s life: the period from Caesar's death (March 44 BCE) up to Cicero’s own death (December 43 BCE).

The opening of the Academic Year 2020-2021 took place on Monday 31 August 2020 in Pieterskerk church.

The opening of the Academic Year 2016-2017 took place on Monday 5 September 2016 in Pieterskerk church.

They were called 'annoying brats', the group of campaigning scientists who in 1978 founded what is now an internationally acclaimed ecological research institute. Their stories and those of the current staff of the Institute of Environmental Sciences are described in the book 'Forty years of Leiden…

How did disability become a global concern? In this project we will identify the contribution of international agencies, governmental and non-governmental organizations and, just as importantly, disabled people themselves, to the IYDP and by showing the connections, interactions and entanglements between…

Promotor: A.P. IJzerman Co-promotor: L.H. Heitman

The Van Loon project sets out to safeguard the archives of Dutch archaeologist Maurits van Loon (Amsterdam, September 22, 1923 - Montpellier, October 12, 2006) and make them accessible for further study.

The current projects of the Molecular Physiology group focus on proteins of the endocannabinoid system, kinases and antibacterial targets. MSc- and BSc-students can contact Jessica van Krimpen-Kraaijenoord to apply for research internships.

Since September 2001 Leiden University's Media Technology MSc program has educated modern academics, creative nerds, playful programmers, tinkering thinkers, and conceptual cross-disciplinarians. On May 13th, we celebrate!

Drug development is a time- and resource-consuming process that starts with the discovery and validation of a (protein) target that contributes to pathogenesis or disease progression.

Leiden Law Practices (LLP)

Since 2000 the Leiden Student Council (LSR) yearly awards a prize for the best teacher of the university at the Dies Natalis.

In 1993, Prof.Dr. L.J. Slikkerveer was appointed as Chairman of the Pithecanthropus Centennial Foundation, commemorating the centenary of the discovery of ‘Java Man’ (Pithecanthropus erectus) by Eugène Dubois in 1893 in Trinil, Java, Indonesia with an International Conference at Leiden University on…

Leiden Professor of Translational Rheumatology Hans Ulrich Scherer has one foot in the clinic, where he helps patients, and the other in the lab, where he supervises researchers. He bridges these two worlds in his hunt for autoimmune rheumatic diseases.

Are magnetic fields older than the first light? And how did they influence the development of our universe right after the Big Bang? Cosmologists from Leiden, Groningen, and Utrecht are now collaborating to investigate this.

The discovery of a new Mersenne prime was discussed on national TV by Hendrik Lenstra and Bas Jansen, who defended his thesis on Mersenne Primes in december, and by Ionica Smeets.

25 Years ago, the Center for Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences was founded at Leiden University; one year later, in 1985, the education program of Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences started. On Friday September 18th, this was celebrated with a Symposium, an anniversary booklet, and a grand party.

Rembrandt Year is concluding with a major exhibition at Museum De Lakenhal. There are still numerous other activities such as lectures, the University Rembrandt Route and the screening of a critical documentary.

Sensational, is how Leiden Egyptologist Olaf Kaper described the discovery of two new chambers in the tomb of pharaoh Tutankhamun. He hopes that a second set of scans will confirm their presence unequivocally.

The handbook is a wide-ranging survey of a crucial period in prehistory during which many social, economic, and technological changes took place. Written by specialists in the field, the book provides coverage both of the themes that characterise the period, and of the specific developments that took…

Nanodiscs are small, disc-shaped structures designed to mimic biological cell membranes, composed of a lipid bilayer stabilized by scaffold proteins. Membrane proteins play crucial roles in essential processes such as nutrient and waste transport, molecular recognition, and cell signalling, making them…

April 10 at 7 pm - April 12 at 8 pm

The Phantom of the Ego is the first comparative study that shows how the modernist account of the unconscious anticipates contemporary discoveries about the importance of mimesis in the formation of subjectivity.

A monthly lecture series about early drug discovery research at Leiden University.

Conference

In exactly 450 days’ time, on 8 February 2025, it is the university’s 450th anniversary. We are going to celebrate this with our students, staff, alumni and friends. In the run-up to the anniversary, we are compiling our top 450: Who or what is your favourite?

Two hundred years ago Caspar Reuvens was appointed as the first professor of archaeology in the Netherlands. He was to lay the basis for both the National Museum of Antiquities and the Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden University. To mark the occasion, the faculty is organising an anniversary lecture…

Moscow's Heavy Shadow tells the story of the collapse of the USSR from the perspective of the many millions of Soviet citizens who experienced it as a period of abjection and violence.

Using artificial intelligence to find new antibiotics. With that, researchers from Leiden University are nominated by magazine KIJK for the Best Tech-idea of 2021. From September 14 onwards people can vote to crown one of the nominees as the winner.