Professor Willem van Schaik MSc PhD

• PhD Microbiology (with honour); Wageningen University, the Netherlands 2005
• MSc Food Science (with honour); Wageningen University, the Netherlands 1998 

Professor Willem van Schaik began his academic studies with a Master’s degree in Food Science at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, which was followed by a PhD in microbiology under the supervision of Professor Tjakko Abee, Professor Willem de Vos and Professor Marcel Zwietering on the regulation of the stress response by the alternative sigma factor σ^B in the foodborne pathogen Bacillus cereus.

He then did post-doctoral studies on an EMBO Long-Term Fellowship at the Pasteur Institute (Paris, France) on the regulation of virulence gene expression of Bacillus anthracis in the laboratory of Dr Agnès Fouet. He then moved to the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands, where he worked on the comparative and functional genomics of several multi-drug resistant opportunistic pathogens, including Enterococcus faecium, Escherichia and Klebsiella pneumoniae. His group also worked on the gut microbiome of critically ill patients that receive intensive antibiotic treatment.

In 2017, he moved to the University of Birmingham, where he was appointed as professor in Microbiology and Infection. In the same year, he was awarded a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. His group studies the role of commensal bacteria in the human gut microbiome as reservoirs of antibiotic resistance genes and the evolution of mobile genetic elements carrying antibiotic resistance genes in opportunistic pathogens. Prof Van Schaik has collaborations with researchers in China and Bangladesh to study the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in low- and middle-income countries. He is lead of the ‘Combatting Antimicrobial Resistance’ in the University of Birmingham’s Institute for Global Innovation. He has been Director of the University of Birmingham’s Institute of Microbiology and Infection since Summer 2020.

• BMedSci Year 2 and 3
• MSc Microbiology & Infection
• MSc Genomic Medicine

Professor Van Schaik is always interested in hearing from potential PhD students who want to apply genomic and metagenomic approaches to study the emergence of drug-resistance in opportunistic pathogens.

You can contact Willem by email. 

The research group of Professor van Schaik combines experimental tools in molecular biology and biochemistry with the opportunities offered by the development of novel, high-throughput DNA sequencing technologies and bioinformatics to elucidate the mechanisms by which harmless commensals transition into multi-drug resistant opportunistic pathogens. The reservoir of antibiotic resistance genes (‘the resistome’) in complex microbial ecosystems (i.e. microbiomes) is also studied.

Functional and comparative genomics of multi-drug resistant Enterococcus faecium

Enterococcus faecium is a Gram-positive commensal of the intestinal tract of humans and animals. Interestingly, a specific sub-population of E. faecium is responsible for the vast majority of hospital-acquired infections. The Van Schaik lab uses genome sequencing, transcriptome profiling (RNA-seq), high-throughput profiling of transposon mutant libraries (Tn-seq) and novel tools for the genetic manipulation of clinical E. faecium isolates to characterize the mechanisms that contribute to the recent emergence of E. faecium as a nosocomial pathogen, including resistance to antibiotics and disinfectants, colonization of the gut, and survival in the hospital environment.

Colistin resistance in Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli

Colistin is one of the antibiotics of last resort for the treatment of infections caused by multi-drug resistant Gram-negative bacteria. The Van Schaik lab studies how resistance to colistin emerges in the opportunistic pathogens K. pneumoniae and E. coli through in vitro evolution experiments and quantifies the trade-offs between the evolution of resistance, fitness and virulence.

Antibiotic resistance in complex microbiomes

The Van Schaik lab is using both culture-based and culture-independent methods, including metagenomic shotgun sequencing, functional to study the diversity of antibiotic resistance genes in the gut microbiota of patients and healthy individuals. The abundance and diversity of antibiotic resistance genes in hospital wastewater is another topic of study. In ongoing research, we use a variety of techniques to link resistance genes to their bacterial hosts in complex microbiota and to detect the horizontal transfer of resistance genes in situ. 

• Senior Editor for Microbiology Journal
• Consultant for Janssen Research and Development, Vedanta Biosciences, and Prenetics.
• Panel member for NIH/NIAID, the Norwegian Research Council, Science Foundation Ireland.
• PhD examiner in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands Belgium, Portugal, Denmark and Ireland (2013 –  )
• Editorial Board Member, Current Opinion in Microbiology (2016 – )
• Editor for Microbiology (2018 - )
• Editor for the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (2020 - )
• Professor Van Schaik frequently participates in outreach activities to non-specialist audiences. These included visits to secondary schools, in which the essential role of microbes on the planet and their contribution to human health are discussed. Research in the Van Schaik lab has been covered by British and international media.