The opportunistic bacterium Burkholderia cenocepacia is feared by cystic fibrosis patients and is emerging in hospital-acquired infections. An international study sheds new light on the infection mechanism of this opportunistic pathogen that may have large implications for treatment strategies.

On Monday 21 September Annemarie Meijer, Professor of Immunobiology, presented her inaugural lecture on immunobiology and infectious disease.

National Meat Free Week (Nationale Week Zonder Vlees, 7–13 March) is an initiative to reduce meat consumption. Assistant professor Paul Behrens is studying what impact a change in our food consumption would have on the world. What, according to him, are the main reasons to switch to a (mainly) plant-based…

Freezing bacteria super fast to gain a true-to-nature image of the internal and external structure. Ariane Briegel Professor of Ultrastructural Biology came to Leiden specially to carry out this research. Leiden University is one of the few institutes in the world to have the necessary equipment. Inaugural…

More than 1.3 million people worldwide die of tuberculosis (TB) each year, making research on its prevention and control essential. Researchers from various disciplines in Leiden are studying TB. A symposium on 24 March will highlight different activities in the hope of boosting nationwide collabora…

Leiden chemists recreated the bacterial capsule of meningococcus in the lab. With a few modifications, these capsules can serve as an extra safe and effective vaccine against these notorious bacteria, which can cause, for example, meningitis. PhD candidate Jacopo Enotarpi and his team published the…

Hermelijn Smits is Professor of Host-commensal Interactions and Immune Modulation. In this role she is increasing our current understanding of the way in which microbes and parasites shape our immune system to protect us from respiratory infections and chronic inflammatory diseases. In her inaugural…

The intestinal bacterium E. coli can adapt to changes in its surroundings. Leiden scientists have discovered how the H-NS protein makes this possible. This new knowledge can be an important starting point in combatting bacteria and diseases such as peritonitis. Publication 2 October in the journal e…

Annemarie Meijer is appointed full Professor of Immunobiology. Meijer’s research focuses on immunobiology and infectious disease. She uses the zebrafish as a model for understanding mechanisms of host immune defense against intracellular bacterial pathogens.

On 1 March, Lennart Schada von Borzyskowski will start on a tenure track position at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL). With a focus on the natural and synthetic biochemistry of environmental bacteria, he wants to apply their features to health and sustainability issues.

Leiden researchers have developed an app that doctors can use to more easily determine the right dosage of medication for corona patients. At the moment, doctors are prescribing many existing kinds of medication to patients. Using the app, they can determine a safe and effective dosage.

Emeritus Professor Ben Lugtenberg edited a book on “Principles of Plant-Microbe Interactions” together with Paul Hooykaas, Eddy van der Meijden and Jos Raaijmakers, all from the IBL.

As part of the career orientation of the Master’s Vitality and Ageing, students visit various healthcare, policy and research organisations throughout the year. Students get introduced to relevant organisations where they have the possibility for a graduation internship and career opportunities. This…

Op zaterdag 3 juni vindt de Museumnacht Leiden plaats. Ook dit jaar zijn Leidse wetenschappers en studenten onderdeel van de programmering.

By working together with external social partners, the knowledge of our scientists finds its way into society.

On this page you will find an overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2025, as well as special appointments at Leiden University and other institutions.

Each year, poppies disperse seeds that grow into a new generation of flowers. Sometimes, some of the seeds postpone their germination for a few years, for example when they’re covered by a layer of sand. Only when the sand disappears, do they start to sprout. Margriet Oomen did mathematical research…

The logo of Leiden University, with letters as small as a bacterium. Researchers from LUMC and the Institute of Biology have created the smallest logo of our university ever produced. It is a piece of fun with a serious real-world application: the new microscope with which the logo was made allows scientists…

Four scientists from the Faculty of Science will receive a grant of up to 50,000 euros in the Open Competition Domain Science - XS from science financier NWO. This category emphatically strives to encourage curiosity-driven and bold research involving a relatively quick analysis of a promising idea.…

IBL-researcher Phil Elks in the group of Annemarie Meijer won the Cell Observatory Publication of the Year 2013. He received the award for his paper in PLoS Pathogens, showing that activation of hypoxia signaling protects against mycobacterial infection.

Bacteria and fungi on organic dairy farms are significantly different from those on conventional farms. That was discovered by postdoc researcher Sofia Gomes and her supervisors Nadia Soudzilovskaia and Peter van Bodegom in collaboration with the Louis Bolk Institute and Naturalis Biodiversity Centre.…

Recently, NWO has decided to grant two interdisciplinary research proposals for national and international consortia submitted by researchers from the Institute of Biology Leiden. One of the proposals is led by Prof. dr. Ariane Briegel, the other one by dr. Remko Offringa.

Asexual procreation in female wasps leads to an accumulation of genetic mutations, and the shrivelling of their sex organ. Leiden biologist Ken Kraaijeveld published this discovery in Evolution. His research is one of the first experimental studies into the consequences of asexual procreation.

Are Weyl particles the ideal conductors? Do cells without a cell wall play a role in chronic Tuberculosis infections? Carlo Beenakker and Dennis Claessen want to answer these questions. They both received a KLEIN grant from the NWO. With these grants, NWO wants to stimulate innovative, fundamental r…

Various consortia in which Leiden University is represented are beginning interdisciplinary research, which will bring scientific and societal breakthroughs within reach. Knowledge institutions, government and private parties are working closely together on the projects.

An overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2020, as well as special appointments at Leiden University and other institutions.

Many of the challenges of our time are too complex to be resolved within the confines of a single discipline. Leiden University is a broad-based university where an incredible number of research fields converge. That makes us the ideal breeding ground for, and practitioners of, interdisciplinary research…

A European consortium has provided a disruptive technological breakthrough to allow the discovery and characterization of novel enzymes for industrial biotechnology. The technology will open the way to more efficient industrial processes such as in the biofuel, animal feed and paper and pulp industr…

Tackling key challenges of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry to aid drug discovery is one of the focus areas of Leiden University. To this end, the Leiden Early Drug Discovery & Development network (LED3) was established by the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC), the Institute of Biology Leiden…

Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, the father of microbiology, died 300 years ago. 2023 has therefore been designated the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek year. The new Unimaginable exhibition in Rijksmuseum Boerhaave is about the amazing world that Van Leeuwenhoek made visible. What was so special about the way he worked?…

The cellular recycling system in zebrafish is capable of eating harmful bacteria and thus resist infections such as tuberculosis and salmonellosis. That is written by Leiden biologists from the group of Annemarie Meijer. Stimulating this form of defence could be used in new treatment methods against…

Two bacterial species team up inside the plant root system to rescue their host from fungal infection. This was discovered by a team of microbiologists and bioinformaticians from the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, Wageningen University, and the Institute of Biology Leiden. They also identified the…

Portraits of six Leiden professors for whom 8 February 2016 was the first time that they took part in the procession of Leiden professors at the Dies Natalis.

One of them turned out to be two thousand years old. And older giant barrel sponges appear to have a faster rate of cell division, unlike us. They produce antibiotics and much, much more. Lina Bayona Maldonado studied how the differences in such factors as age or oceanic depth affect the production…

Researchers from the LUMC and the Universities of Granada and Almería have found a gut bacterium that is associated with stronger muscles in people and mice. Their findings, published in the journal Gut, hint at the potential for new probiotics to support muscle strength and healthy ageing.

The climate crisis, the return of TB and the digitisation of cultural heritage. The Netherlands and Indonesia face many of the same challenges. A visit by a delegation from Leiden University to Indonesia at the end of June highlighted the benefits of cooperation.

Jacques Waisvisz (98) is one of our oldest living alumni. As a Jewish student in the Second World War, he was forbidden from completing his studies. How does he look back at that time, and what was life like afterwards? ‘No one thought that the situation here would become so bad.’

Without academic freedom, we might not have antibiotics, nor a deep understanding of human behaviour. Literary criticism, climate models, and ecological restoration would be severely limited; just like ethical reflection on artificial intelligence, justice, trauma, parenting, faith and hope. All these…

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Over the past year, many of our staff and students have won prizes, been awarded a substantial grant or been appointed to an academic association or a position in public life. All of these are good reasons to include them in our 2019 Hall of Fame. We are proud of them all.