Drug discovery and development
Our contribution to society:
New or improved treatments for chronic and acute illness.
News
Our research and teaching
Leiden’s medical research is dedicated to advancing healthcare through scientific discoveries – from uncovering the causes of diseases to developing new and improved medicines with minimal side effects. This applies to major illnesses such as cancer, cardiovascular conditions, brain disorders and infectious diseases, as well as rare diseases that currently have no treatment options. And what about antibiotics becoming less effective as bacteria develop resistance?
In its multidisciplinary programmes, Leiden University equips students with the expertise to become the pharmaceutical developers of tomorrow. And within its strong network of researchers and biomedical companies, it develops treatments for a wide range of diseases. Our research groups comprise researchers from various disciplines: from medicine and pharmaceutical sciences to biology, chemistry and computer science. We participate in national and international research projects and work with industry and large civil society organisations.
This collaboration drives the development of innovative medicines, delivery methods, and diagnostic tests. It also leads to groundbreaking treatments – such as a technique using modified immune cells to eliminate cancer cells – as well as drugs for muscle diseases and vaccines against malaria.
We also pioneer innovative medical technology, including new animal-free models for testing the safety of medicines. Our work is supported by cutting-edge research facilities, biobanks, patient databases, and pharmaceutical production facilities. Discoveries made in Leiden have laid the foundation for multiple companies specialising in groundbreaking drug development.
Experts
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Rob van Wijk Topics: drug development, drug discovery, high-throughput experimentation, immuno-pharmacology, infectious diseases, modelling and simulation, pharmacokinetics-pharmacodynamics, preclinical to clinical scaling, rodents, translational pharmacology, tuberculosis, zebrafish -
Eline Dekeyster Topics: clinical trials, drug development, healthy aging, metabolic psychiatry, neurobiology -
Madeline Kavanagh Topics: chemical biology, chemical proteomics, drug discovery, immunology, medicinal chemistry -
Irene Pascual Garcia Topics: drug development, host-directed therapeutics, immunometabolism, infectious disease models, innate immune system, mycobacterial infection -
Mario van der Stelt Topics: artificial intelligence, drug discovery, endocannabinoid, kinase, medicinal chemistry -
Ilze Bot Topics: drug discovery -
Sandra Irmisch Topics: biochemistry, biosynthesis, drug discovery, metabolic engineering, natural products, pathway analysis, plant metabolomics, synthetic biology -
Matthias Barz Topics: drug discovery -
Joost Batenburg Topics: algebra, artificial intelligence, computational drug design, computational imaging, drug discovery, geometry, number theory, tomography -
Thomas Hankemeier Topics: analytical chemistry, biomedical applications, drug discovery, drug research, electrophoresis-mass spectrometry, high resolution mass spectrometry, metabolomics, organ-on-a-chip, pathway analysis -
Gerard van Westen Topics: artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, cheminformatics, chemogenomics, drug discovery, machine learning, proteochemometrics -
Judy Veldhuijzen Topics: drug discovery -
Anne Wentink Topics: drug discovery -
Sebastian Pomplun Topics: affinity selection – mass spectrometry, combinatorial chemistry, drug discovery, organic synthesis, solid phase synthesis, synthetic transcription factors -
Laura Heitman Topics: allosteric modulation, drug discovery, drug-target binding kinetics, g protein-coupled receptors, novel drug discovery concepts, small molecules -
Stephan Hacker Topics: drug discovery -
Kim Bonger Topics: drug discovery -
Nathaniel Martin Topics: drug discovery -
Anthe Janssen Topics: artificial intelligence, bio-informatics, chemical biology, docking, drug discovery, medicinal chemistry -
Steffen Brünle Topics: allosteric modulation, biased signaling, cryo-electron microscopy, drug discovery, gpcr, structural dynamics, time-resolved x-ray crystallography -
Tom van der Wel Topics: chemical biology, chemical genetics, chemical probes, covalent inhibitor, crispr/cas9 gene editing, drug discovery, kinase, serine hydrolase, target engagement, target validation -
Jeroen Codee Topics: adjuvants, artificial intelligence, carbohydrates, drug discovery, inhibitors, stereoselective synthesis, synthetic methodology, vaccines -
Hermen Overkleeft Topics: activity-based protein profiling, artificial intelligence, chemical biology, chemical proteomics, drug discovery, glycosidases, inhibitors, proteases
