In spring 2020, the country was facing a potential lack of hospital ventilators for the huge numbers of Covid-19 patients. In response, Clinical Technology students designed an emergency device in the space of just three weeks. ’These students become 80% doctor and 80% engineer.’

From fake news via WhatsApp to mini hearts from a 3D printer: four Leiden researchers have been awarded a Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council. These grants, of up to 2m euros, enable researchers to establish or expand their research team and continue to develop their career.

Researchers at the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) have managed to culture human heart muscle cells on a massive scale. This is an exceptional achievement because it is very difficult to replicate heart muscle cells outside the body. Using a special technique, the researchers have now created…

Leiden University experiments with Virtual Reality as a learning experience.

Seven new Medical Delta professors revealed their research plans in a lecture marathon on 21 June. The professors at Leiden University, the LUMC, Delft University of Technology and the Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam operate at the interface between life sciences and health and technology.

To relieve a patient's pain, it can be effective to induce expectations. This finding is promising for optimising the effectiveness of treatments, conclude Kaya Peerdeman and colleagues in their article in PAIN.

The LUMC is the first medical institution in the world to offer a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on clinical kidney and pancreas transplantation.

Sixteen researchers at Leiden University have received a Veni award from the Netherlands Organisation for Academic Research (NWO). This award offers promising young researchers the opportunity to further develop their ideas for a period of three years.

In case of serious illness, treatment in the Intensive Care Unit (IC) may be necessary. Intensive care treatments has improved over the years and more and more seriously ill patients are surviving admission to the ICU. This favorable development however has a downside since long-term consequences of…

The elderly accept may minor discomforts like stiffer muscles and getting tired more quickly, but they do want to go to their children's birthdays independently. Preventive elderly care helps people with that. The goal is to let people grow old while maintaining their self-reliance and independence…

An overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2017, as well as special appointments and royal distinctions.

NWO awarded a grant for novel research on Complex and Distributed Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). The grant will fund a four-year research project in which they hope to devise a method to explore and find optimal designs for CPS. Todor Stefanov, Associate Professor at the Leiden Institute of Advanced…

Museum Boerhaave amplifies its collection with original letters and pictures from Einstein and Lorentz. Professor by special appointment Dirk van Delft, also director of Boerhaave, accepted the documents on 12 March.

Kidney transplantation used to be an experimental risky procedure, but is now routinely performed by many countries worldwide.

Thanks in part to the persistence of a Leiden research group, cancer could be detected in the near future with just a single drop of blood. Not only can the diagnosis be determined at an earlier stage, but the blood test is also cheap, fast and patient friendly. The first results of this method seem…

Medical Delta has appointed seven professors who will bridge the medical worlds of Leiden, Delft and Rotterdam.

Meniere’s disease, a disorder of the inner ear, was first described back in 1861, but there’s still no good test or treatment for it. Tjasse Bruintjes, Professor by Special Appointment of Ear, Nose and Throat Surgery, wants more attention for this mysterious disease. And he wants to tell his fellow…

In July, 2018, the Institute of Biology Leiden hosted the 11th conference of the Zebrafish Disease Models Society (ZDMS), an international association dedicated to the advancement of basic and clinical research using zebrafish disease models. More than 350 researchers from all over the world gathered…

Dr. Eduard Fosch-Villaronga and his supervisor Dr. Bart Custers received a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action (MSCA) fund for research on legal and regulatory aspects of healthcare robot and artificial intelligence technologies.

The Leiden University Medical Center is being transformed into a Teddy Bear Hospital in the week of 20 to 24 March. During this week more than a thousand children will care for their favourite cuddly toy under the watchful eyes of Leiden's medical students. The aim of the event is to reduce children's…

Operating on tsunami victims, coordinating emergency aid during a civil war and the croaking of frogs in the surgery: Menno Swier worked as a doctor of tropical medicine in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. He is now a GP on Terschelling and here too there is never a dull moment.

Computers are capable of making incredibly accurate predictions on the basis of machine learning. In other words, these computers can learn without intervention once they have been pre-programmed by humans. At LIACS, we explore and push the borders of what a revolutionary new generation of algorithms…

With cancer, a person’s body cells grow uncontrollably. Putting together a detailed picture of how this comes about makes it possible to develop efficient therapies. Researchers at the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) and Leiden University are working together to gain a better understanding…

Here you can find an overview of the Erasmus+ projects undertaken by Leiden University since 2015.

Eleven Leiden researchers have been awarded a Veni grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The grant will enable them to develop their research ideas for a period of three years.

Statistician Anja Rüten-Budde has won the C.J. Kok Jury Award 2020. Her PhD thesis resulted in an app which helps patients with soft tissue sarcoma and their doctors to make well-considered choices about the treatment. ‘Her work is interdisciplinary and directly relevant for society,’ the jury state…

Marta Fiocco, professor at the Mathematical Institute, has received a grant for predicting survival outcome and improving the balance between prognosis and quality of life for soft tissue sarcoma patients (Personalised Sarcoma Care).

A new computer simulation shows the promising possibilities of the booming field of topology. Smartly designed mechanical structures carry sound exclusively one way and are immune to fabrication errors. Publication on 17 July in Nature Physics.

Amir Zamanipoor Najafabadi, a doctor and researcher at the LUMC’s Department of Neurosurgery, researches how meningioma treatment can have a long-term effect on a patient’s life. He recently defended his dissertation: with a patient on the examining committee, this was a unique occasion.

A new app is able to calculate personalised survival probabilities for patients suffering from soft tissue sarcoma. Doctors and patients can use the app to calculate personalised survival probabilities together. Mathematician Anja Rüten-Budde received her doctorate for her research into survival probability…

On 2 November, nine professors were simultaneously inaugurated as ‘Medical Delta Professor’ at Leiden University, LUMC, Delft University of Technology, Erasmus University and Erasmus MC. With an appointment at a minimum of two of these five academic institutions, they combine technology and healthcare…

By measuring proteins in tears, ophthalmologists can more easily diagnose dry eyes (Dry Eye Disease). Peter Raus, a Belgian ophthalmologist and PhD student at the Institute of Biology Leiden, developed a new method for protein determination in tear fluid. The technique is also promising for the early…

A master's degree in Psychology at Leiden University combines theoretical knowledge with academic and professional skills, making you an attractive candidate for many employers.

The purpose of eLaw's Working Groups is to stimulate a productive working environment for cooperation within the Center for Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden University.

Conference

Matthijs van Leeuwen of the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science develops methods to make computer models interactive. With interactive models, experts can combine information from raw data with their own knowledge to make predictions more accurate. 'In this way we hope to build models that…

Self-driving cars, surgery robots, and stock market algorithms: the use of robots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly increasing. What are the opportunities for this development, and what the dangers? The Honours Class ‘Robot Law: Regulating Robot and AI Technologies’ prepares students for the…

Leiden physicists exploit self-assembly of small particles to someday create functional structures such as micro-robots from the bottom up. They have now taken an important step forward by experimentally realizing joints at micrometer scale. Publication in Nanoscale.

Manufacturers produce high-end technology mostly top-down with large machinery, but small particles are able to build structures by themselves from the bottom up. A major challenge is that these particles easily clump together. Leiden physicist Daniela Kraft has developed a method to use this phenomenon…

Young transgender people are able to decide together with their parents on a reversible intervention with puberty blockers. These are the results of a study by LUMC Curium and Amsterdam UMC of 74 young people undergoing treatment. Ninety percent of the young people studied proved able to make an informed…

The 4G network will soon be replaced by 5G. 5G will enable users to set up faster and more reliable data links as well as better privacy protections. For intelligence agencies, however, the upgrade in data protections will create huge problems.

At the International Online Conference 'Fair Medicine and Artificial Intelligence' organised by the University of Tübingen (Germany), Hadassah Drukarch, junior researcher at eLaw, gave a presentation on how current algorithmic-based systems may reinforce biases in healthcare. This topic forms part of…

Leiden’s ‘Learning with the City | On Location’ knowledge store opened its digital doors in Leiden-Noord on 8 February. This is where students, residents and professionals can work together on social issues.

On Friday 10 December 2021, the Center for Law and Digital Technologies (eLaw) of the Leiden Law School, hosted its annual Research Colloquium exploring the theme 'Law Gone Digital'. The event gathered presentations by eLaw PhD candidates and professors on a wide range of topics at the interface of…

Of the 87 Vidi research subsidies awarded by NWO, five have been awarded to Leiden researchers. This represents almost 6 per cent of the successful applications.

Symposium

I am an associate professor in health psychology here at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. My main line of work is health behaviour and behaviour change, so trying to understand why people do what they do including clearly unhealthy things. I have done a lot of work on personal goals and…

Many alumni are frontline health workers and are working day and night to treat thousands of corona patients. Intensivist Michael Frank (53) is one of them. As head of intensive care at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Dordrecht, he is steering his department through the corona crisis.

Lecture

Debate