Dr. L. (Laura) Kervezee

I am currently an assistant professor at the Leiden University Medical Center in the field of human chronobiology. My research focuses on circadian medicine and the goal of my research group is to advance and apply our understanding of the circadian timing system to improve human health, with a specific focus on hospital conditions and patient care. My research focuses on three domains: 1) Chronobiological interventions in different patient groups to improve clinical outcomes; 2) Mechanistic studies to investigate the circadian system and its implications for physiology and health on a molecular, cellular, and systems level; and 3) Computational approaches to study circadian rhythms in real-world clinical settings. We also care about public outreach and science communication.

After completing my PhD in the field chronopharmacology in 2017 at Leiden University, I subsequently worked as a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, studying the physiological effects of night shift work. Currently, I study the circadian clock in hospitalized patients and interventions to strengthen circadian rhythms in critically ill patients, funded by a VENI fellowship from the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research (ZonMw). I am co-initiator and coordinator of the BioClock consortium (www.bioclockconsortium.org), which was awarded a 10 million euro grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) in the framework of the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA). In 2022, I was awarded the Heineken Young Scientist Award in Biomedical Sciences from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) as a recognition of my research and involvement in public outreach. I am an ambassador of the LUMC Neuroscience theme.