Corona

Many people were eager to return to their work at the Faculty after the first lockdown, to get back to their practical experiments. To guarantee a safe workplace, our colleagues at Facility Management corona-proofed every room in every building. Thank you!

‘Our son Luca was born at the beginning of March,’ says Hilde Pracht-Altorf, editor at Communication and Marketing. ‘My close family was just able to visit, but the weeks that followed were unreal and lonely.’ Luckily, there are the Tuesday morning coffee breaks in Teams. ‘Just a chat about anything really, work-related or not.’

For exactly a century and a half, the Leiden Science Society (NGL) has been organising high-quality lectures to inform its members about the natural sciences. This year, NGL hosted a two-weekly online lecture series, in which Leiden scientists gave their expert views on corona-related topics. Flowers are a good way of saying thank you.

Covid-19 forced Leiden’s Hortus botanicus to close precisely during the seasonal changes in March and November, when the Hortus is at its best. Luckily, visitors were welcome the rest of the year, albeit with the necessary precautions: booking a time-slot in advance, strictly following the walking routes, and wearing a face mask indoors.

After a long period of silence and emptiness in the spring, our labs reopened for research this summer. Scientists were able to resume their experiments, all while keeping the recommended 1.5 metres distance. Perfect for those who appreciate their personal space.

Traditionally, the EL CID introduction week is one of the social highlights of the year in Leiden. But at the height of a pandemic, we were happy to physically receive our new bachelor’s and master’s students at the Faculty for just one corona-proof session. Assessor Joost Barendse also hosted a well-attended online information session.

Graduating Covid-style: is there any way of really celebrating this momentous milestone? There is! We transformed the restaurant of the Gorlaeus Lecture Halls into a corona-safe ceremony location, complete with a signing lane and a CO2 blast cannon. The whole event was captured in photos for later.

Covid-19 is a complex disease, and a lot is still unknown. Can we predict which patients will develop critical symptoms? And why is it that some patients are affected much worse than others? Immediately after the global corona outbreak in March, Thomas Hankemeier, Professor of Analytical Biosciences, started work on finding the answers.

For his Covid-19 research, Hankemeier uses his expertise in metabolomics, the field that studies the unique chemical fingerprints that specific metabolic processes leave in our bodies. Think of amino acids, sugars or hormones, for example. These fingerprints give a good indication of a person’s current health. Hankemeier: ‘We are going determine the metabolic fingerprints in the blood of between 5,000 and 7,000 Covid-19 patients. This fingerprint consists of more than 1,000 metabolic products and lipids. It is therefore a direct reflection of all Covid-19-relevant processes that take place in the body, ranging from the viral infection and its consequences to the body’s reaction to it.’

These studies help researchers identify markers that predict which new patients will develop serious symptoms. ‘By combining the profiles with computer models and organ-on-a-chip systems, we can accurately determine what is happening in the sick patients, ’ says Hankemeier.

Together with his colleagues, Hankemeier hopes to improve patient care for intensive-care patients, the elderly and at-risk groups. With the models and fingerprints, they will also be able to test the effect of existing and new drugs, and optimise patients’ diets and dietary supplements.

Chemists Xue Liu and Grégory Schneider have created a new ultrathin membrane just one molecule thick. The membrane can produce a hundred times more power from seawater than the best membranes used today. The discovery opens up whole new possibilities for power generation and desalination and for building much more efficient sustainable fuel cells.