Belgium
Prof. Van Dijck studied biology at KU Leuven. After one postgraduate year in Biotechnology, he started his PhD in the Laboratory of Experimental Endocrinology at the faculty of medicine, under the guidance of Prof. Verhoeven. The topic of his PhD was on steroid-hormone regulated gene expression. After a five-year postdoc in the Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology, in the lab of Prof. Thevelein, Department of Biology, working on yeast biotechnology, he went to Janssen Pharmaceutica to introduce molecular biology work in the Department of Biochemistry, with a focus on the development of high-throughput drug screening for baculovirus produced enzymes and gene expression interference. After 2 and half years, he came back to the MCB lab as a independent PI at the Flemish Institute for Biotechnology, VIB. The focus was then on plant trehalose metabolism as well as starting the work on the human fungal pathogen Candida albicans. In his research group there are currently three main research lines. The first focus is on nutrient-induced signal transduction pathways that affect morphogenesis and virulence in Candida species. There are also ongoing activities to identify novel antifungal compounds from either plant essential oils or from soil microbiota fermentation products. The third research topic is on the elucidation of antifungal resistance and tolerance mechanisms with a focus on the emerging human fungal pathogen Candida auris. Prof. Van Dijck published 230 peer reviewed papers and has an H-index in google scholar of 74. Currently there are 12 PhD students, 6 postdocs and 6 technicians actively working in the lab (https://bio.kuleuven.be/mcb/).
Central European Symposium on Antimicrobials and Antimicrobial Resistance
