"There's a great need for virus inhibitors"
 

Research focus: development of antiviral strategies

The central themes in my research are the interaction between viruses and their host, and the development of antiviral strategies. My work mainly focuses on picornaviruses (a large family of (+)RNA viruses that includes many clinically and economically important pathogens for humans - e.g. poliovirus, EV-A71, EV-D68, coxsackievirus and rhinovirus - and animals, such as FMDV and EMCV) and coronaviruses (e.g. SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV).

My current research focuses on

1) virus structure, receptors and entry mechanisms,

2) viral genome replication,

3) development of antiviral drugs, and

4) innate host responses and viral countermeasures.

For these studies, we make use of state-of-the-art virological, biochemical, cell biological (e.g. CRISPR-Cas9 screens, haploid cells, siRNA screens), microscopy (e.g. life cell imaging and EM tomography), drug screens and structure-based drug design approaches.

Possibly a human antibody has been developed that can inhibit the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). More information in the dossier coronaviruses.

Awards

Research has been awarded by ERC Advanced Grant (2022), NWO VICI (2011) and NWO VIDI (2003) grants, and the Beijerinck Premium (award from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, KNAW) (2004). Furthermore, I coordinated two Marie Curie European Training Networks (ETN), namely ANTIVIRALS (www.antivirals-etn.eu; 2015-2019; EC-H2020 funding) and EUVIRNA (www.euvirna.eu; 2011-2015; EC-FP7 funding).