Christina Vandenbroucke-Grauls - Biography#

Christina M.J.E. Vandenbroucke-Grauls was born on 22 February 1952, Leuven, Belgium. She graduated as Medical Doctor (Magna cum Laude), Catholic University of Leuven in June 1977. After initial training in internal medicine and a research stay at the Center for Blood Research in Boston, Mass, USA, she trained as a Medical Microbiologist at Utrecht, The Netherlands and was registered in 1984. At present (since 1995) she is Professor of Medical Microbiology and Head of the Department of Medical Microbiology and Infection Control, VU University medical centre (VUmc), Utrecht, The Netherlands. For five years, she combined this with being also the head of the similar department at the Academic Medical Centre of the University of Amsterdam. During her career she focussed on the epidemiology of healthcare-associated infections and their control, and on the molecular mechanisms and epidemiology of antimicrobial resistant bacteria. Because of her expertise in these fields, she was appointed in several Committees and Boards. She was member of the Dutch Working Party on Infection Prevention (Ministry of Health) from 1988 to 2003, from 1992 to 2003 as Chairman. She was member of granting committees of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (ZonMw), the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), chairman of the Advisory Commission for the “Centrum Infectieziekten Bestrijding” of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Disease. Besides her more clinical expertise, she is also involed in research on the molecular pathogenesis of mycobacterial infections. This led, amongt others, in 2002-2003, to a stay as visiting scientist, at the MRC Immunochemistry Unit, Department of Biochemistry, Oxford University, Oxford.

She was the promotor of 36 PhD students, (co-)acquired 23 grants, organised >40 courses, workshops, and symposia, gave >140 lectures on invitation (several international plenaries). She reviewed for National Funding Agencies (Belgium, France, Ireland, Switzerland, Denmark, Qatar) and within the EU FP6 and FP7 programme. She is co-author of 320 publications and 25 chapters in books and had approximately 25 national general media interviews (mainly television).