ISAC's Living Legends

Episode 2: Prof. van der Meer

In this episode Ian Gould interviews Jos van der Meer (Emeritus Professor and former Chairman at the Department of Internal Medicine of the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre in Nijmegen). Jos charts the evolution of modern infectious diseases—from his discovery of the hyper‑IgD syndrome and pioneering work in innate immunity to his early leadership in antimicrobial stewardship and European science policy. He reflects on scientific breakthroughs, the struggle to revive antibiotic development, the lessons of COVID‑19, and his new career as a graphic artist.

Jos W.M. van der Meer (born April 15, 1947) is emeritus professor and former chairman at the department of internal medicine of the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre in Nijmegen, Netherlands. He is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (since 2003), of which he was vice president and chairman of the division of natural sciences (2006-2012). He is a member of Academia Europaea. Between 2014 and 2016 he was president of European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC). He performs research on cytokines and host defence, chronic fatigue syndrome and hyper-immunoglobulinemia D syndrome (HIDS). He is also active in graphic art and makes cartoons, for example for the Dutch science journal Mediator. Read more on WIKI.

Episode 1: Prof. Andreas Voss

In this episode Prof. Gould interviews Prof. Andreas Voss tracing his career from early training in Germany to pioneering work in MRSA surveillance, infection control and global antimicrobial stewardship. Voss shares key insights from international collaborations, the evolution of clinical microbiology, and the challenges shaping the future of infectious disease practice.

Andreas Voss is Professor of Infection Control at the University Medical Center of Groningen, The Netherlands. His expertise is in the field of infection prevention and control, in particular the epidemiology of MDRO’s, hand hygiene and behavior change.

Presently, he is the chair for the Dutch IPC Guideline organization (SRI). He has served on the board/executive of many (inter-)national professional societies such as the International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (ISAC, president), European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID, program director), the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA, international councilor), and the Infection Control African Netwerk (ICAN) and the Dutch Society for Medical Microbiology (NVMM).

Andreas Voss was the co-founder of the International Conference on Infection Control and Prevention (ICPIC) and Founding Editor of the BMC journal Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control (www.ARICjournal.com). He has >400 peer-reviewed journal publications to his name (H-index overall: 81), Google Scholar profile