Wiep Klaas Smits is currently associate professor in Medical Microbiology at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC). After obtaining his PhD at the University of Groningen (NL), he performed his post-doctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA). In 2010 he joined the LUMC and set up his own line of research using support from Innovation scheme grants of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research. Since 2019, he heads the research group Experimental Bacteriology and LUMC’s Center for Microbiome Analyses and Therapeutics. His work focusses on fundamental aspects of bacterial biology, in particular those that are relevant for antimicrobial development and antimicrobial resistance. In addition, he is interest in therapeutic interventions targeting the microbiome.