Through various initiatives, Leiden University is trying to make people aware of the importance of biodiversity: the cultivation of a wide variety of micro-organisms, animals and plant species. This is important because in the Netherlands biodiversity has declined from about 40 percent in 1900 to about…

The strange tropical plants belonging to the Corsiaceae family first emerged millions of years ago on the supercontinent of Gondwana. That is what Leiden University researcher Constantijn Mennes concludes in an article in the Journal of Biogeography.

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…

In 2005, the LEAD Programme organised and coordinated the International Exhibition on ‘Jamu: Medicinal Plants for Health and Conservation in Indonesia’ in collaboration with Universitas Padjadjaran (UNPAD) in Bandung, Indonesia, the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania (MAICH) in Chania, Crete,…

PhD defence

On 14 April, the National Growth Fund awarded million euros in grants to two consortia in which Leiden's science faculty is involved. Pharma-NL will receive 80 million euros and Oncode-PACT 325 million euros. Pharma-NL wants to make medicines available to the patient faster and more sustainably. Oncode-PACT…

On Friday 10 July the Towards Biosolar Cells research programme was granted a budget of 25 million euros by the Dutch Government. The Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality recommended the programme because it will contribute to green energy, improve food supplies and a create a more sustainable…

Almost 100 billion tons of CO₂ could be pulled out of the atmosphere by the end of the century. That is, if high-income countries switch to a plant-based diet. The double carbon profit of returning farmland to its natural state would equal about 14 years’ worth of agricultural emissions, researchers…

Promotor: H.J.M. de Groot, Co-Promotor: A. Alia

In the research programme Microbial Sciences we perform state-of-the-art research in the field of biotechnology and microbial sciences.

Which traits and/or trade-offs determine benefits of being deciduous or evergreen?

Researchers from the Plant Ecology and Phytochemistry group at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) received an STW (Stichting Technologische Wetenschappen) grant for applied studies in plant herbivore resistance with potential for a novel resistance test.

Balsaminaceae is a diverse plant family characterized by a huge floral morphological diversity.

Emeritus Professor Ben Lugtenberg received ‘The Arima Award for Applied Microbiology’ from the IUMS (International Union of Microbial Societies) for his life-time contributions to this field.

What are the behaviours of plant traits throughout various points in the growing season in a radiative transfer model framework and how well can this knowledge be integrated through data assimilation to provide priors for robust local and global vegetation products and analysis?

Which genes are involved in woodiness and associated traits such as drought tolerance, flowering time, stem elongation, life span, and plant herbivory, and how do these gene regulatory pathways overlap?

Promotor: S.M. Verduyn Lunel, Co-Promotores: S.C.Hille, O.W. van Gaans

How does the extracellular matrix coordinate endothelial cell behavior during angiogenesis, and how do metabolic waste-products and matrix-degrading enzymes produced by the tumour modify the extracellular matrix so as the change the cellular coordination?

Together with a large international team of scientists, researchers Peter van Bodegom and Nadia Soudzilovskaia of the Leiden Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) have created maps of variability in plant trait distribution across the globe. The new maps have been published in Proceedings of the…

‘It was a discovery we did not expect,’ says Remko Offringa, professor of Plant developmental genetics. Today he publishes a new trait of a versatile gene in Current Biology: it makes the difference in plants between herbaceous and woody stem growth. A useful feature to prevent dehydration.

Promotors: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo, Prof.dr. G.A. Persoon, Prof.dr.ir. H.H. de Iongh

In Microbial Sciences, we perform multidisciplinary research to understand the structure and function of microbes at all levels of biological organization, from small molecules and cellular structures at atomic resolution to multicellular communities.

Promotores: G.A. Persoon, H.H. de Iongh

Master's student Thalia Luden receives an NWO grant for her research proposal about a gene that brings flowering plants back into a growth phase. Companies in floriculture and vegetable seed breeding also contribute to the research.

Andrew de la Haije is Director of the Dutch branch of Xebia Consultancy Services, an internationally operating consultancy agency that coaches companies through digital transformation. He followed the executive master’s programme in Cyber Security and graduated with distinction.

How do plant defense genes get activated?

Mycoheterotrophy is a particular mode of life in which plants obtain carbohydrates from their associated fungal partners, instead of by using photosynthesis.

Thijs Bosker, Associate Professor of Environmental Sciences at Leiden University College (LUC) and the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), has received funding as part of a large consortium to study the impacts of microplastics on agricultural soils. The project will receive 7 million euro of…

Why do plants produces always produced so many slightly differing metabolites within a particular chemical class?

Plants and their pollinators form complex interaction networks. Within these networks, species differ widely in the number of species they interact with.