Prof. Abram Aertsen (PhD in Bioscience Engineering, 2004) is full professor at the Department of Microbial and Molecular Systems at KU Leuven, and focuses on the molecular-genetic dissection as well as the synthetic reconstruction and appropriation of bacterial and bacteriophage behavior. In this context, his group leverages advanced bacterial genetics, live cell biology, and modelling approaches to understand and direct population-level heterogeneity and differentiation dynamics at single-cell resolution.