Understanding how bacteria adapt in order to survive is fundamentally interesting and can potentially help us to understand bacterial infections, says Eveline Ultee who researched how bacteria change their shape.

Antibiotics are classified based on their likelihood of inducing antibiotic resistance in bacteria, as tested in the lab. Aram Swinkels thinks there is another factor that should be taken into account: the lifespan of antibiotics.

Shortly after starting her PhD research, the coronavirus pandemic hit and Melissa Thaler switched to coronavirus research. She is now trying to find a drug against this novel virus.

By mapping out genetic information in a family tree Renate Hakse van der Honing will show similarities and differences between Hepatitis E virus subtypes that may be responsible for a more dangerous variant.

Michelle Schinkel’s PhD research is about the transmission of diseases by mosquitoes. Her ultimate goal is to find an insect-specific virus that inhibits the transmission of malaria and arboviruses to humans.

Many studies focus on health and disease from a human, animal or environmental perspective. Kitty Exel realised during her studies that it is important to adopt an integrated approach. “This is why I am excited to study the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, which infects both cattle and humans.”

In the middle of a global pandemic, Bastiaan van der Roest is working on transmission trees: pathways that show how an infection spreads. The resulting models can potentially be used by policymakers to prevent or extinguish infections.

Sam Boerlijst has started in track 15 of One Health Pact: Experimental work on effects of global change scenarios on vector population parameters – At LUMC.