Oscar Kuipers - Biography#

Oscar Kuipers is an internationally recognized leader in the field of antimicrobials, bacterial cell biology, synthetic biology and bacterial gene regulation. PhD research at Utrecht University, Kuipers was the first to carry out protein engineering of eukaryotic phospholipases (Science 1989; Nature 1990). Moving to NIZO in 1990, Kuipers used his expertise to focus on antimicrobial peptide biosynthesis and their engineering, and on gene regulation in lactic acid bacteria; a career that he continued at the University of Groningen as Full Professor since 1999. Several major innovative breakthroughs and contributions:

• New antimicrobials for human health. Word-leading and widely published expert on the biosynthesis, function and regulation of modified antimicrobial peptides produced by bacteria (known as ‘lantibiotics’). Major discoveries and developments in this area include the unraveling of the biosynthesis route of the paradigm lantibiotic nisin. Kuipers was also the first to show that the lantibiotic nisin induces its own expression (JBC 1995). This bacterial cell-to-cell signaling (‘quorum sensing’) has later been shown or dozens of autoinducing (antimicrobial) peptides. With several collaborators he showed that many lantibiotics need lipid II as a receptor or docking molecule for effective killing, thus lowering the chance of resistance development, because lipid II is an essential molecule for the cell (Science 1999; 2006).
  

• Population heterogeneity and bistability at the single cell level. From 2003 onwards, Kuipers has carried out pioneering research into single cell biology, unraveling the mechanisms leading to phenotypic heterogeneity in bacterial populations. Kuipers’ key realization was that differentiation and heterogeneity in bacterial cultures, hitherto commonly treated as homogeneous, is omnipresent and has important implications for bacterial behaviour. These insights into differentiation and heterogeneity are now being used to develop novel strategies to fight unwanted bacteria, either for human health or in industrial settings. He also was the first to show that phenotypic heterogeneity and bet hedging occur during bacterial diauxic shift, thus adjusting and extending the common dogma of Monod (PNAS, 2014).
  

Currently, he is heavily focusing on developing novel antimicrobials for pharmaceutical applications, using lantibiotics as an inspirational template. He developed a synthetic biology suite to be able to mimic non-ribosally produced peptde antibiotics (NRPS) with ribosomally produced and posttranslationally modified peptides (RiPPs) (2014 - 2022).

In 2019 he founded the company Omnicin Therapeutics, focusing on the development of novel antibiotics for clinical use.