Leiden University offers you several services related to career orientation and job application skills.

The master's specialisation Drug Discovery and Safety at Leiden University provides students with research-oriented education into the discovery of new drug targets and new lead molecules, particularly in the field of cancer, through a combination of advanced imaging techniques (‘systems microscopy’),…

The master’s specialisation Industrial Pharmacy at Leiden University examines safety and quality control in the production of medicinal products, and prepares students for a career in Quality Assurance and Quality Control in the biotechnological and pharmaceutical industry.

Growth hormone profiles are pulsatile and highly variable between individuals, limiting the implementation of mathemathical models to quantify an individual's secretion.

Promotor: A.H. Meijer, Co-promotor: B.E. Snaar-Jagalska

Lysosomal storage disorders (LSDs) are a group of orphan diseases characterized by lysosomal dysfunction or impaired lysosomal catabolism and affect collectively about 1 in 5000 live births.

Source: Biosens Bioelectron, Volume 74, pp. 233-42 (2015)

The Pharmacy research group focusses on the development of predictive models to improve clinical drug efficacy and safety. We work on clinical problems that require further mechanistic understanding and strive for ultimate benefit to patients.

Children, cardiac surgery patients or people who are obese. How can we improve the dosing of painkillers for these patients? Hospital pharmacist Sjoerd de Hoogd of the St. Antonius Hospital in Utrecht investigated this. He combined data from the hospital with the knowledge and expertise of the Leiden…

Through metabolism, biochemical processes give rise to the complexity of life. Acquired and inborn errors in metabolism underlie many diseases occurring in man. The challenge for present day medical biochemistry is to find, and integrate, pieces of information at molecular, cell and organismal level…

The goal of hit and lead optimization is to optimize suitable chemical starting points that can modulate a drug target. The methods and technologies used are similar to those in Hit Discovery, but once the compound has shown activity in an animal model, it moves from 'hit' to 'lead.'

The Chemical Probe Facility is part of the Leiden Early Drug Discovery & Development (LED3) center. Activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) is one of the pillars of chemical biology. ABPP determines the activity of entire protein families in living cells and tissues under physiological conditions, such…

Prediction of human (CNS) target site concentrations in health and disease In the vision of Prof. de Lange we will only be able to predict human (central nervous system, CNS) target site concentrations and effects if we perform systematic, condition-dependent, integrative, and strictly quantitative…

We aim to keep experiments on animal to a minimum. We therefore assess every study whether full account has been taken to implement the 3 Rs: replace, reduce, refine. The Animal Welfare Body advises researchers on this. By training our staff and provide further courses, we are able to continuously…

Can excessive worrying be reduced via stimulation of the vagus nerve?

We aim to gain a better understanding of the natural disease progression of ALS in order to improve clinical trial design and analysis and to support drug discovery and clinical development of new drugs.

The more we learn about a (neuro-)psychological or physical disorder and the related behavioral factors, the better we can not only identify them, but also treat them. It is therefore important that recent insights about (neuro-)psychological problems and related behavioral factors are incorporated…

Molecular Physiology is a research group at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry dedicated to the design, synthesis and application of chemical tools to study important biological and biomedical questions. The group is headed by Prof. Dr. Mario van der Stelt and includes the research lines of Assistant…

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.

The master’s specialisation Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences and Education at Leiden University combines fundamental chemistry research with an excellent education in becoming a Chemistry teacher.

Get to know us through our online and in-person events for prospective students!

The Minor Computational Approaches to Disease, Signaling and Drug Targets (CADSDT) is focused on fundamental scientific research required for discovery of new drug targets and development of new drugs.

We are committed to provide you with meaningful, rigorous and quality graduate experiences in a personalized environment with a cutting edge research infrastructure and internationally renowned supervisors.

The master’s specialisation Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences and Business Studies at Leiden University combines fundamental and applied research with different aspects of business studies.

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.

Supervisor: Lizi Xia

We are interested in the efficacy and safety of new drugs and novel means to decipher these aspects. Hence, we employ advanced imaging and high-throughput screening techniques next to computational approaches such as chem- and bioinformatics.

On the annual spring meeting of the Dutch Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Biopharmaceutics (NVKFB), Margreke Brill received the TOP Publication Award.

In order to better understand the course of Alzheimer’s disease, Frédérique Kok believes that a strategic and structured approach is needed: the Mastermind research approach. With her LUF grant, Kok wants to generate high-quality data to build a mathematical model that can recognize the onset of the…

What is the best method and time to test the effectiveness of medicines? PhD student Rob van Wijk of the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) discovered zebrafish larvae are best used in drug research when they are five days old. His findings were published on 15 February in the journal…

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…

- How to deconvolute metabolic mixture of precursors and products by biontransformation? - How to optimize the reaction conditions to produce bioactive compounds in biotransformation? - What is the effect of co-treating fungi or bacteria for biotransformations?

To be eligible for System Biomedicine and Pharmacology at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

Through metabolism, biochemical processes give rise to the complexity of life. Acquired and inborn errors in metabolism underlie many diseases occurring in man. The challenge for present day medical biochemistry is to find, and integrate, pieces of information at molecular, cell and organismal level…

Ad IJzerman was elected Highly Cited Researcher in the 2019 Web of Science mapping of research achievements. As defined by the Web of Science team at Thomson Reuters “highly cited researchers are among those who have demonstrated significant and broad influence reflected in their publication of multiple…

Persistent somatic symptoms are long term symptoms that lack a clear medical explanation. These symptoms have a high prevalence where most people know someone who experiences such symptoms or they experience such symptoms themselves. Symptoms can vary greatly in and between people. While one person…

The Ancient Worlds Network brings together staff and graduate students in LIAS working on the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern world.

The Biomedical Microscale Analytics group is led by Dr. Rawi Ramautar. In present-day metabolomics, and bioanalysis in general, the analytical toolbox used encounters difficulties for the analysis of limited amounts of biological samples. As a result, a significant number of crucial biomedical/clinical…

The research carried out within the unit Health, Medical and Neuropsychology investigates the psychological factors of health and disease, and the development of innovative treatment.

We are committed to provide you with meaningful, rigorous and quality graduate experiences in a personalized environment with a cutting edge research infrastructure and internationally renowned supervisors.

Cognitive decline (amongst other problems with attention, concentration, memory) is a common symptom in patients with a variety of brain disorders and has been related to healthy ageing as well. People suffering from cognitive deficits are often significantly hampered in their day-to-day functioning…

At Leiden University, researchers from all disciplines work together to find answers and design innovations in the field of artificial intelligence.

The goal of hit discovery is to identify suitable chemical starting points to modulate a drug target. A hit can be, a.o., a small molecule, a protein or mRNA. Hit identification is performed via rational design, genome mining, (targeted) library screening, or in silico approaches.

The ambition of the Metabolomics and Analytics Centre led by Thomas Hankemeier is to develop innovative analytical strategies for metabolomics-driven health monitoring and systems biology studies. Understanding the intricate balance between health, disease and adaptation to challenges relies on the…

Your time at Leiden is about more than just studying. Some of your best experiences will stem from being a part of our lively and diverse student community, as well as from life in the beautiful city of Leiden.

Research lines within the Pharmacy group:

LED3 is the combined effort of three excellent institutes of Leiden University. Through joined hands, we are able to give rise to a more effective early drug discovery pipeline. Let us briefly introduce the three institutes.

The discovery of new medicines is a tedious and lengthy process. On average, over 10,000 molecules need to be studied for one to become a drug and reach the patient. Part of that process are the very costly clinical trials in humans, and candidate drugs often fail due to side effects or lack of efficacy.…

A next, general pharmacological problem to be tackled is how drug-target binding kinetics in vivo, affects target occupancy as an important indicator of the time-course of drug effects.