Professor Gilles P. van Wezel, Director, Institute of Biology & Professor of Microbial Biotechnology, Leiden University, The Netherlands

Gilles van Wezel is Professor of Molecular Biotechnology and Director of the Institute of Biology, Leiden University, The Netherlands. He is also Honorary Fellow at the Royal Academy institute NIOO-KNAW in Wageningen, NL. He studied Chemistry at the Free University in Amsterdam, obtained a PhD in 1994 in Biochemistry in Leiden and worked as a postdoc at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, UK. He was a research fellow for the Royal Netherlands Academy (KNAW) and became full professor in 2010. He received an ERC Advanced grant in 2022 and coordinates several large research consortia, including the EU H2020 network MARBLES on marine microbes and natural products. The overarching aim is to go beyond the known horizons and provide novel insights into the global and specific regulatory pathways in Actinobacteria. In particular, Gilles aims to understand how streptomycetes are able to translate the cacophony of signals they receive in the habitat to then make the right decisions to grow, sporulate and produce secondary metabolites. This information is applied by developing elicitation approaches during antibiotic screening. The research is characterized by strong resonance between fundamental and applied research.