How can we extend the drug residence time to combat diseases more effectively?

Leiden biotech startup Azafaros has successfully completed a funding round, raising 25 million euros of investments for developing treatments of rare metabolic disorders. The company holds exclusive license to a library of novel patented compounds discovered by experts from Leiden University.

Another research line is the development of a spatial CNS drug distribution model, by ultimately including the 3-dimensional anatomical organization of the CNS.

During the course of drug discovery translational steps are made.

Can effective synergists be identified to enhance the effect of antibiotics against Gram negative pathogens?

This thesis describes the importance of being able to control the selectivity of potential drug candidates.

In this research project characteristics of effective instructional development were identified that are appealing to medical teachers and relevant for medical education.

Valérie Pattyn, Assistant Professor at Leiden University, researched

Source: ChemMedChem (2015)

Clinical development of drugs for central nervous system (CNS) disorders has been particularly challenging and still suffers from high attrition rates.

Heart failure is a major health care problem with high mortality.

A consortium of research groups, including that of LACDR professor Erik Danen, will use an NWO Perspective grant of nearly five million euros to build a universal standard for organ-on-chip models. They aim to stimulate the application of these chips in the biomedical and pharmaceutical industry. Danen…

Science, Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR)

Human and animal cells are very complex: very different chemical processes are going on at the same time, but they are separated from each other because the cells are divided in compartments. These compartments may also have a profound effect on the potential efficacy of therapeutics, because the drug…

The GMP Facility facilitates development and production of Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs) and chemical (peptide) synthesis.

Data analysis with Python and R are rapidly becoming essential skills for modern scientists. Therefore, we are offering courses to develop your scientific computing skills. Those courses are optional for LACDR PhD candidates.

Promotor: A. Kros

Comparing individual health data with group data allows doctors to give personalised advice and patients to learn from one another's experiences. Wessel Kraaij, Professor of Applied Data Analytics, shows how personal data can have a valuable predictive function. Inaugural lecture 24 February.

Exploring the mechanism of targeted nanoparticle-mediated drug delivery using the zebrafish model

The lack of success of new CNS drugs in clinical development is in part due to the complexity of the CNS, unexpected side effects, difficulties for drugs to penetrate the brain, but also by the lack of biomarkers.

Laura Heitman of the Leiden Academic Center for Drug Research (LACDR) has been nominated for the Prix Galien Research Award. This important pharmaceutical prize honors young, prominent researchers whose scientific research is of great importance for fundamental or clinical drug research.

Activity-based protein profiling (ABPP, also termed chemical proteomics), is one of the pillars of chemical biology, and at LED3 we have taken it to the next level. ABPP allows the assessment of protein function in live cells and tissues, which means that the activity of a complete protein family can…

Gerard van Westen and his group, together with pharmaceutical company Galapagos, start on developing software that invents new effective molecules. They will receive an NWO LIFT grant of 280,000 euros, of which 63,000 euros will come from Galapagos. The company will also bring its expertise in biology,…

Anthropogenic noise negatively affects wildlife in a wide range of taxonomic groups.

Promotores: Prof.dr. H. S. Overkleeft, Prof.dr. G. A. van der Marel

This project’s aim is to critically assess current homicide data sources in order to develop a proposal for long-term EU-level monitoring of DRH.

Not taking into account the saturation of drug targets can lead to wrong conclusions about the duration of a drug's action. This is what former PhD candidate Wilbert de Witte writes together with the Leiden professors of pharmacology Meindert Danhof, Piet van der Graaf, and Liesbeth de Lange in Nature…

Promotor: A.P. IJzerman Co-promotor: L.H. Heitman

Discovery and development of Central Nervous System (CNS) drugs is hampered by high attrition rates.

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…

Leiden University, the LUMC and Janssen have signed a partnership agreement stating that they will collaborate in different areas, including infectious disease prevention, clinical tests, drug production and e-health. By joining forces, the three partners will be able to provide better, more innovative…

PhD candidate Dennis Wander searches for the best of both worlds. That is to say: a cancer drug that is effective and also has minimal side effects. To this end, he makes new molecules inspired by two existing medicines. And not without result: ‘We have created a new variant that is very promising.’…

The aim of this thesis is to expedite and ensure the systematic accuracy of clearance scaling from adults to paediatric patients, with a special focus on drugs undergoing hepatic metabolism.

Analysis of drug adversity

Promotor: Prof.dr. A.P. IJzerman, Co-Promotor: Dr. L.H. Heitman

Establishing human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) CRISPR-Cas9-based fluorescent reporter cell lines for NF-kB signalling. We will use this to enable studying the dynamic activation and downstream signalling of Toll-like receptor and cytokine signalling in iPSC-derived differentiated cells in a…

The path to rational drug and dose selection

It is a stormy Sunday afternoon, with gusts of a whopping 110 kilometres per hour. Chemist Teun Sweere defies the enormous headwind on his city bike and wins the NK Headwind cycling after 22,5 minutes. A new highlight follows six months later: his PhD defence (14 June).

Source: Nature Biotechnology, Volume 2014, Issue June (2014)

From descriptive to physiological models that can predict oral absorption and elimination of CYP3A substrates across the pediatric age range.

Online Convex Optimization for the Effective Curvature

High throughput microscopy

Research conducted at Leiden has established that guts-on-chips respond in the same way to aspirin as real human organs do. This is a sign that these model organs are good predictors of the effect of medical drugs on the human body. Publication in Nature Communications on 15 August.

Promotores: C.A.J. Knibbe; J.N. van den Anker, Co-promotores: H.P.A. van Dongen; B. van Ramshorst

Promotor: A.P.IJzerman Co-promotor: A. Bender

Erik Danen is looking at how to inhibit tumours that do not respond well to medicine – and he is making some headway. The Professor of Cancer Drug Target Discovery studies the interaction between tumour cells and their surroundings. Inaugural lecture on Friday 10 May.

How to make a quantitative assessment of the relative contribution to toxicity of ions and particles? Is the toxicity of nanoparticles related to their size or shape? Which physicochemical property of nanoparticles is an appropriate dose metric of nanoparticles?

Promotor: B. van de Water

The kidneys play a major role in the elimination of drugs. In children, the exact age-related physiological changes underlying kidney function remain largely unknown.

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopy is a non-destructive analytical technique that is used to study the nature and characteristics of molecules with an atomic level precision. It has a wide range of applications especially in synthetic chemistry, biological and biochemical research groups…