Together with Pepijn Tuinier and Thijs Brocades Zaalberg, Sebastiaan Rietjens researched the role of trust in an international intelligence cooperation.

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.

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.…

Promotie

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…

The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) has published the 2017 issue in their Civil Society and Disarmament series, titled Voluntary, Non-Binding Norms for Responsible State Behaviour in the Use of Information and Communications Technology: A Commentary. The series aims to provide…

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.

Laura Heitman has been awarded a VIDI grant for her innovative drug research. Heitman strives to optimize a drug’s binding kinetics at its target in order to ultimately fight diseases effectively. She even pleads for a paradigm shift in drug discovery.

Source: Org Biomol Chem, Volume 13, Issue 8, pp. 2407-22 (2015)

Indira Nederpelt was elected as the winner of the Young Investigator Award for best oral presentation titled ‘’Kinetic characterization of clinically used GnRH peptide agonists’’.

Research in this group, headed by Gerard van Westen, focusses on computational methods integrated in different parts of the drug discovery process. More specifically, topics include innovative treatments for cancer, selectivity modeling, translational research, allosteric modulation, drug resistance…

Promotor: Prof.dr. H.V.J. Linnartz, Co-Promotores: H.M. Cuppen, S. Ioppolo

Target selectivity is an important aspect of any drug molecule, and certainly a parameter to be optimized. That is not trivial for a number of reasons. First of all hundreds of drug targets (receptors, enzymes, ion channels) exist, and no single lab in the world has assays for all of them.

Promotores: G.W. Canters, T.J. Aartsma

Promotores: Prof.dr. G.W. Canters, Prof.dr. T.J. Aartsma

As of 1 November, Laura Heitman has been appointed full Professor of Molecular Pharmacology at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR). Heitman has been working on the understanding and improvement of drug-receptor interactions in early drug discovery. ‘My ultimate aim is to make medicines…

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery volume 18, pages 82–84 (2019). The implications of target saturation for the use of drug–target residence time Wilbert de Witte, Meindert Danhof, Piet van der Graaf, and Elizabeth de Lange

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…

Dong Guo was awarded two poster prizes for his poster ‘Molecular Mechanism of Allosteric modulation at G protein-coupled Receptors: Insight from a Binding Kinetics Study at the Human A1 Adenosine Receptor’ at the FIGON Dutch Medicines Days, October 6th-8th this year.

Seven talented female scientists join the fight against cancer of the Oncode Insitute. Laura Heitman of the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research is one of the new Junior Investigators. ‘I hope to discover new druggable targets’.

From 3-6 December 2019 the conference “The Ties that Bind”: Mechanisms and Structures of Social Dependency in the Early Islamic Empire will take place. Deadline for sending in your abstract: 31 January 2019.

Finding structure in disordered proteins and developing drugs for undruggable diseases: it might sound like mission impossible, but pharmacologist Alireza Mashaghi and his team are right on top of it. Their project was awarded by NWO through the Open Competition Domain Science -XS, a competition that…

There are many complex links in the chain that provides patients with new drugs: from fundamental science, to clinical tests, to production. The entire chain can be found in Leiden. Leiden University, the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and the businesses at the Leiden Bio Science Park (LBSP)…

Α-synuclein, a protein associated with Parkinson’s disease, proves to bind with membranes in a surprisingly efficient way. It confirms scientists’ suspicion of the protein’s leading role in the transmission of neurotransmitters between nerve cells in the brain. Publication in PLoS ONE.

Promotor: A.P. IJzerman

The recognition that there may be more, so-called allosteric binding sites on a given receptor has also fueled our synthetic efforts. Over the last few years we have focused on many drug targets (adenosine A1, A2A and A3 receptors, the mGlu2 receptor and a classic ‘anti-target’, the hERG channel) to…

Allosteric modulation has long been recognized as a general and widespread mechanism for the control of protein function. Modulators bind to regulatory sites distinct from the active site on the protein, resulting in conformational changes that may profoundly influence protein function. This concept…

‘Huis van het Boek/Museum Meermanno in The Hague exhibits book bindings by leading Dutch Art-Nouveau artists from the period 1890-1910. The exhibition will be open from March 22 to June 23 2019. The title of the exhibition is De Bijzondere Band: Art Nouveau-boeken van Dijsselhof, Lion Cachet en Nieu…

Promotores: Prof.dr. C.A.M.J.J. van den Hondel, Prof.dr. V. Meyer (Technische Universität Berlin)

Bringing together institutes and research groups, how do you do that? The Faculty of Science set up a joint research theme and financed three PhD positions. After four years, the profiling programme Endocannabinoids expires. ‘It really brought us together, and the collaborations remain.’

Tin electrodeposition applications have rapidly evolved in the past 25 years.

Promotor: M.T.M. Koper, Co-Promotor: F. Calle-Vallejo

Research at the Macromolecular Biochemistry group is comprised of the following research themes:

The purpose of this study was to investigate the formation and growth kinetics of complexes between proteins and oppositely charged polyelectrolytes.

Early time-resolved experiments by Frauenfelder on the ensemble of the kinetic rebinding of CO to myoglobin molecules resulted in a stretched exponential relaxa-tion due to a very large spread of the reaction rates of individual molecules.

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

Promotie

Research projects for students of the University of Leiden and other Dutch Universities are often available at the MacBio group. The research lines are also described in the Research section. For details of specific projects contact the supervisor (Ubbink, Dame, Boyle, Jeuken or Wentink).

Lezing

Promotor: A.P. IJzerman

Promotor: A.P. IJzerman

Promotor: J.P. Abrahams, Co-Promotor: N.S. Pannu

Key publications of the Predictive Pharmacology group.

Wiskunde en Natuurwetenschappen, Leids Instituut voor Chemisch Onderzoek (LIC)

The objective is to develop in vitro antigen degradation assays in order to mimic the fate of the antigen in vivo.

Promotor: M.T.M. Koper, Co-promotor: L. Juurlink

Promotors: Prof.dr. J. Zaanen, Prof.dr.ir. H. Hilgenkamp

Promotor: M. Ubbink, Co-promotor: G. Siegal