In Microbial Sciences, we perform multidisciplinary research to understand the structure and function of microbes at all levels of biological organization, from small molecules and cellular structures at atomic resolution to multicellular communities.

An overview of Quantitative Pharmacology projects

Microbial Sciences' contribution to the Biodiversity & Evolution research theme focuses on understanding how bacteria sense and respond to their environment, and how bacterial diversity and evolution is influenced by cooperative and antagonistic interactions taking place between microbes.

Key publications of the Quantitative Pharmacology group

Leiden University and Leiden University Medical Center have joined the Netherlands Centre for One Health (NCOH), further strengthening the academic network in which such problems as antimicrobial resistance are studied.

Key publications of the Antiviral Pharmacology group.

After four years of hard work, the time has finally come: your thesis is finished. But who of your family and friends will ever read it? Biologist Lizah van der Aart decided to make a magazine for layman. 'It was precisely the explanation of the difficult, fundamental parts that gave me good tools for…

The central question of this Vici proposal is to investigate if, and how actinobacteria exploit life without a cell wall.

Macromolecular Biochemistry is a section of the Leiden Institute of Chemistry at Leiden University, comprising the PIs Marcellus Ubbink, Remus Dame, Lars Jeuken, Anne Wentink, Sebastian Geibel, Anjali Pandit, René Olsthoorn, Alia, and Steffen Brünle.

LIACS organizes different lectures and seminars like the LCN2 Seminars and SAILS Lunch Time-seminars.

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)…

This dissertation contains four works during my PhD. Different biomaterials have been designed based on coiled-coil peptides. These biomaterials have a range of applications, inclusing drug delivery, cell sorting to cell-cell fusion.

Almost all bacteria are enveloped by a cell wall that provides cellular protection.

We investigate bacteria and fungi to understand their malicious or beneficial impact on food crops and their pathogenic or antibiotic role in human health.

Lecture

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…

An overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2022, as well as special appointments at Leiden University and other institutions.

Living systems scale from unicellular microbes to complex multispecies communities that constantly change over time. Within the theme Development & Disease, we enhance our fundamental understanding of development and homeostasis of living cells and systems. We analyze the normal situation and how stresses…

The LED3 hub, consisting of researchers from the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC), the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) and the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS), is very excited to organize the “LED3 Lectures”. This lecture…

Leiden Early Drug Discovery & Development (LED3) is a multidisciplinary research network at Leiden University dedicated to advancing innovative approaches in early drug discovery and development. The initiative brings together 58 principal investigators from four institutes—the Institute of Biology…

On this page you will find an overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2026, as well as special appointments at Leiden University and other institutions.

Though tuberculosis can be cured today, new resistant strains of the bacteria are becoming a growing problem in the medical world. Biologist Annemarie Meijer and her colleagues are studying resistance to this disease. Their research is already yielding several interesting clues that could help the development…

Would you like to know more about our research using laboratory animals or our studies on alternatives to animal testing? If so, take a look at the news articles on the right-hand side of the page (for mobile users, see the bottom of the page).

The filamentous bacteria Streptomyces are widespread inhabitants of terrestrial soils.

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.P. van Wezel, Co-Promotor: E. Vijgenboom

Promotor: G.A. van der Marel, Co-promotor: D.C. Codée

Control of infectious diseases poses continuous challenges for human health.

In this thesis, bioorthogonal chemistry is combined with correlative light-electron microscopy to selectively label and study pathogenic intracellular bacteria within the host immune cell.

The effective treatment of tuberculosis (TB) remains a major challenge to global health.

Promotor: C.A.J. Knibbe, Co-promotores: H.P.A. van Dongen, B. van Ramshorst

Research in the Lars Jeuken group focusses on redox-active proteins and membranes enzymes, aiming to understand bacterial respiration at the molecular level for the development of antimicrobials and semi-artificial photo-synthetic cells.

Pseudomonas Aeruginosa is a Gram-negative bacterium which can form biofilms, increasing its resistance against antibiotics and the host immune system. Polysaccharides are an integral part of this biofilm, one of these polysaccharides is called Psl. PslG is a glycosidase, able to cleave this polysaccharide,…

Actinobacteria are well known for the production of bioactive natural products, many of which have applications in the fields of human, animal and plant health. Subject of this thesis are the anthracyclines, glycosylated aromatic polyketides with potent anticancer activity.

Are you graduating at the Faculty of Science? Or are you supervising a PhD student? At the Graduate School of Science you find support at every phase of your PhD.

A complex community of microbes develops in the infant gut shortly after birth. We call this community the infant gut microbiota. The microbiota influences the health of the infant, which makes the composition and function of the infant gut microbiota an important topic to study.

Promotor: G.P. van Wezel, Co-promotor: D. Claessen

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.P. van Wezel

The focus of the Antiviral Pharmacology group led by Anne-Grete Märtson is optimizing antiviral therapy for different viral infections by conducting clinical trials and using innovative computational and dynamic laboratory methodologies.

How do mycobacteria subvert the defenses of host immune cells?

Streptomyces present a valuable platform for natural product discovery. Lugdunomycin is a novel angucycline-derived polyketide from Streptomyces sp QL37, with unprecedented skeleton and antimicrobial activity.

Preterm birth is a major contributor to neonatal morbidity and mortality and is associated with both acute complications and long-term health consequences.

Microbial Sciences' contribution to the Bioactive Molecules research theme is to discover new bioactive molecules and enzymes and unravel their mechanisms of action, regulatory networks, and the (bio)synthetic pathways required for their production.

A vaccine based on sugar coats does have the potential to combat a multi-resistant staphylococcus. That is what Jeroen Codée and his colleagues from Utrecht state in Nature. In doing so, they are contradicting the earlier conclusions of German colleagues.

The Translational Immuno-Pharmacology group works on translating the efficacy of anti-infective therapy from preclinical (e.g. in vivo) to clinical, and is led by Rob van Wijk. Infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, are in constant need of new therapies that work better, faster, and with less risk…

Uncover novel antimicrobials with prospective health benefits for sea turtles.

The CMCB brings together microbial cell biology expertise in Leiden. It aims at optimal resonance between the groups and maximal exploitation of the available infrastructure and to develop innovative cross-boundary technology platforms.