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My name is Inge Gyssens, I am Belgian, senior researcher at the department of Internal medicine, theme Infectious diseases and global health.
When you were a kid what did you want to be when you grew up? Can you tell us something about your child years.
I was a cheerful child and my father nicknamed me “ little ray of sunshine”. I tried to keep that spirit but found out that life at times presents some serious challenges to maintaining this attitude.
I wanted to study medicine at a relatively young age –I do not remember the exact time, both my parents were practicing MDs.
What was your previous academic training, where did you study and why that study?
I studied medicine and tropical medicine in Antwerp, Belgium. My field of interest moved from pediatrics to surgery as a student, and after working for five years as a tropical doctor in Africa, I finally chose internal medicine with a focus on infectious diseases.
I was a late bloomer in research. I liked clinical work. The urge to become a researcher came only after having so many unanswered questions in daily practice, like: why does this person gets a life-threatening infection, while others remain unaffected?
The RIMLS motto is: ‘Today’s molecules for tomorrow’s medicine’. What does this mean for you?
One of my fields of interest is antibiotics, and there has been a twenty- year gap in the development of novel antibiotic molecules, in particular against gram negative resistant bacteria. I hope that our recent Radboudumc contribution to the IMI-funded DRIVE-AB project has somewhat helped to revive the pipeline of antibiotics.
Who is your great example as scientists? And please give a motivation why.
My mentor William A. Craig, University of Wisconsin, “the father of antibiotic pharmacodynamics”, who passed away in 2015. He graduated in medicine and also in mathematics, and combined both fields in his experimental work. The key concepts he proposed have become essential in the assessment of novel antibiotics and in the optimization of their use. Bill was also a wonderful teacher who never tired of patiently explaining his scientific concepts. In 1993 he welcomed me, a full-time working mother of two, into his laboratory for a 10-day “crash course”. This, in my eyes, made him a rare feminist in academic medicine at that time, and a refreshing and welcome change from bullies and/or sexual harassers.
Which research discovery that you have made has made you most proud?
I have not made spectacular research discoveries. As goes for most researchers, our results are small pieces of a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. I would probably say the co-authored papers which are most cited – this means most used by others- and those I worked the hardest on as last author make me most proud.
Given unlimited finance what experiment would you perform?
With unlimited finance I would like to bring together a consortium of fine multidisciplinary researchers to initiate a large study on the interplay between the host’s (genetic) susceptibility to infection and the virulence of the most important bacterial pathogens. Refined animal models such as the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans or zebrafish (Danio rerio) could be used to make sense of the associations found in observational cohorts.
What does your working area (desk, office) look like and what does it say about you (or your research)?
When I left my office in Erasmus MC Rotterdam in 2007, it looked like the home of a hoarder. Since then, as everything is accessible in a cloud or online, my objective is a “paperless office”.
Nominate a colleague to be in the spotlight and what would you like to ask him or her?
Martin Jaeger.
I would like to ask him whether being so generous, helpful and kind is an innate or acquired characteristic?
What type of person are you, quick insights:
a) Mac or PC? : Macb) Theater or cinema? : Home Cinema in my basement
c) Dine out or dine in? : Both, as long as the food and the company are good
d) Ferrari or Fiat? : Ferrari, in the passenger seat
e) Shopaholic or chocoholic? : Shopaholic
f) Culture or Nature : Both
