International pharmaceuticals company Grünenthal is to open an innovation hub on the Leiden Bio Science Park. The hub will make it easier for scientists and drug developers to work together.

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…

Promotor: M. Ubbink, Co-promotor: G. Siegal

Can drug screening for tuberculosis treatment be made more efficient?

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a subtype of breast cancer characterized by limited treatment options and unfavorable clinical outcomes. Therefore, the research described in this thesis focused on the exploration of novel targeted therapies for TNBC.

This thesis tackles the difficulty of predicting the liver’s clinical response to novel therapies, a challenge arising from interspecies differences and limitations of existing in vitro models.

Solute carrier (SLC) transporters are a large and diverse class of relatively understudied transmembrane proteins.

Promotor: B. van de Water

Promotores: A.P. IJzerman, H.W.T. van Vlijmen

Promotor: Prof.dr. R. Verpoorte, , Co-Promotor: Young Hae Choi

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) constitutes a small subtype (~15%) of breast cancer, but causes the majority of breast cancer-related deaths.

In this thesis population pharmacokinetic and physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) approaches were applied to investigate the influence of glomerular filtration (GF) and active tubular secretion (ATS) on renal clearance in children.

The cannabinoid receptor type 2 (CB2R) is associated with several inflammatory diseases with an unmet medical need (e.g. Alzheimers, multiple sclerosis, reumatoid arthritis). Development of new chemical biology strategies to study this protein is essential to aid future development of drugs for these…

Robert Ietswaart does research into gene regulation at the famous Harvard Medical School in Boston. He developed an algorithm to better predict whether a candidate medicine is going to produce side effects. He studied mathematics and physics in Leiden, and gained his PhD in computational biology in…

Conference

Chemotherapy that does not harm the body, but effectively fights cancer cells: that is the goal of chemist Sylvestre Bonnet and his team. During his PhD research, chemist Xuequan Zhou brought that goal a little closer. He developed molecules that, upon injection in the bloodstream, self-assemble into…

Rosan Kuin started her PhD in July at the LACDR under supervision of prof. Gerard van Westen and Dr. Meindert Lamers. She completed a BSc. in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the VU University in Amsterdam in 2017. After that she started two master programs, Drug Discovery & Safety with a specialization in…

The aim of this work was to study the applicability of antigen-coated pH-sensitive microneedle arrays for effective vaccination strategies. Therefore, a model antigen (ovalbumin) was coated onto pH-sensitive (pyridine-modified) microneedle arrays to test pH-triggered antigen release by applying the…

On this page you will find an overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2024, as well as special appointments at Leiden University and other institutions.

This thesis describes the design, characterization and application of dextran based crosslinked network.

Metal-containing molecules combine geometrical features and a reactivity that are inherently different from that of organic molecules. My research focuses on light-activatable metal-based anticancer drugs and metal-functionalized liposomes. Light is a very selective way to activate photosensitive drugs…

As leading cause of death worldwide, cancer is responsible for nearly 10 million deaths in 2020 according to World Health Organization (WHO). Cisplatin and its derivatives are commonly used chemotherapy agents for current cancer treatment in the clinics.

Promotor: Prof.dr. J. Kuiper

Can zebrafish provide a fast, sensitive in vivo vertebrate model for identifying novel mechanisms of Ewing sarcoma progression and for development of new anticancer compounds in a time- and cost-effective manner?

Promotor: M. Ubbink, Co-promotor: G. Siegal

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…

Cancer is considered the silent pandemic of the 21st century and the second leading cause of death worldwide.

This thesis explored the molecular pharmacological mechanisms of targeting CB2R via investigation of novel drug discovery concepts such as target binding kinetics, allosteric modulation and biased signaling.

The intradermal administration route is attractive for vaccine delivery, because of the highly populated antigen-presenting cells in the skin. However, the skin’s main physical barrier, the stratum corneum, prevents vaccines from entering the skin.

Development of Natural Resource for New Medicines

The Department of Medical Microbiology at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) is researching antiviral drugs that could treat and prevent SARS-CoV-2 in various projects. One part of the PanCoroNed project is being led by Martijn van Hemert and involves lab tests into the antiviral effect of molecules…

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

Since the start of the Corona crisis, several COVID-19 related research and teaching projects were started at LACDR. The computational and teaching activities started right away, as well as a large-scale metabolomics screening program by Thomas Hankemeier’s group. Other experimental activities are still…

How is inflammation in tuberculosis controlled by interplay between autophagy and inflammasome signalling?

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?

In dermatology, there should be a high level of multidisciplinary collaboration among institutes and specialists, Professor of Translational Dermatology, Robert Rissmann, will say in his inaugural lecture on 8 July. He is building an infrastructure that will put pre-clinical and clinical skin research…

The zebrafish is a promising vertebrate model organism in early drug discovery and development.

Promotor: E. Bouwman, Co-promotor: S. Bonnet

How to identify patients at risk of developing devastating, metastatic disease and facilitate the development of personalised treatment for prostate cancer patients?

In this thesis, mathematical modeling and simulation was applied as a tool to inform quantitative decision making in oncology drug discovery and development.

The adenosine receptors are proteins that reside in the extracellular membranes of cells. Activation of adenosine receptors plays a role in many physiological and pathological processes, such as immune responses and cancers.