Distinguished scientist and virologist John van der Oost has been awarded the M.W. Beijerinck Virology Prize. He will receive the prize at the Dutch Annual Virology Symposium (DAVS) on 21 March 2025. The same event will see researchers Carmen Embregts and Puck van Kasteren receive the Beijerinck Premium, a grant for early-career researchers who are contributing to virology research in the broadest sense of the word.
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Beyond the boundaries of virology: M.W. Beijerinck Virology Prize and Beijerinck Premium recipients announced
M.W. Beijerinck Virology Prize
The M.W. Beijerinck Virology Prize is awarded once every two years to an internationally renowned researcher who has made a ground-breaking contribution to virology research. The prizewinner receives a monetary award of € 35,000 and a medal bearing the likeness of M.W. Beijerinck.
John van der Oost (b. 1958), professor of Microbiology at Wageningen University & Research, is an internationally renowned virologist and one of the pioneers of the CRISPR-Cas technology, which works by cutting a DNA sequence at a specific genome location and deleting or inserting genes there. The CRISPR-Cas method provides an excellent basis for the development of unprecedented applications in virology, as well as industrial biotechnology, botany and medicine.
In 2008, Van der Oost published a seminal paper in Science describing how bacteria defend themselves against viruses using the CRISPR-Cas system, a defence mechanism allowing them to recognise and disable the DNA of invading viruses. Van der Oost showed that a synthetic CRISPR system can easily be used to adapt this mechanism so that it will target any DNA sequence.
Not only does this make it possible to specifically target the DNA of a bacterial virus, but the method has also been found to be suitable for gene-editing in plants, animals and humans. This discovery paves the way for many new applications, from developing new drugs and improving plant varieties to curing certain human genetic disorders.
In its report, the M.W. Beijerinck Virology Fund Advisory Committee stressed Van der Oost’s unique contribution to science: ‘...he laid the groundwork for an entirely new field of research, far beyond the boundaries of virology.’ Van der Oost is also noted for his supervision of early-career scientists. He has supervised many highly successful PhD candidates, a testimony to his exceptional mentoring.
‘I and my very talented team stand on the shoulders of such giants as Van Leeuwenhoek, Darwin and Beijerinck. The combination of bacteria, viruses and evolution produces amazing results, both in nature and in our lab. This award is very much the icing on the cake of my career!'
Beijerinck Premium
The Beijerinck Premium encourages the professional development of early-career researchers who are contributing to virology research in the broadest sense of the word. The € 12,500 grant is meant to finance activities in the field of virology.
Developing rabies treatments
Carmen Embregts (b. 1989) is a post-doctoral researcher in the Viroscience department at Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam. Her research focuses on unravelling the immunosuppressive pathways and mechanisms of the rabies virus, in particular how the virus affects innate immune cells in the earliest moments of infection. The jury is impressed by Embregts' robust and independent line of research and recognises her unique expertise regarding the rabies virus and the work carried out in dedicated laboratories.
Embregts intends to use the grant to finance a visit to the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh.
'The Beijerinck Premium will allow me to establish a line of research at a location where rabies is widespread, so that I can make an important shift from studying experimental (lab) infections to natural infections. In the proposed study, I will collect unique patient materials and examine the immune response to the rabies virus in detail. The insights gained will support the development of new, currently unavailable treatments.'
Networker
Puck van Kasteren (1985) is a senior researcher at the Centre for Immunology of Infectious Diseases and Vaccines, part of the Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). She studies how the immune system responds to respiratory viral infections. Her focus is how antibodies function and how viruses and their hosts interact in the respiratory epithelium, the layer of cells in the nose and lungs that separates the respiratory system from the outside world. She will use the grant to visit two renowned virology laboratories, i.e. Thiel lab at the University of Bern and te Velthuis lab at Princeton University.
The jury is delighted by this proposal. It expects that the researcher’s visits to these labs will allow her to conduct more mechanistic and fundamental research in the future.
'The Beijerinck Premium allows me to expand my international network and enter into new partnerships that will help me advance my research on vaccines to combat respiratory viruses. Thanks to the grant, I can also give early-career virologists a leg up by organising a networking event for them with more experienced researchers.’
Award ceremony
The award ceremony of the KNAW Beijerinck Prize and Premium will take place Friday 21 March 2025 in the Geertekerk, Utrecht during the t Dutch Annual Virology Symposium (DAVS).
- Submit nominations:Is opening 12 August 2026
M.W. Beijerinck Virology Prize
The M.W. Beijerinck Virology Prize is awarded to an internationally renowned researcher who has made a ground-breaking contribution to virology research. The prizewinner receives a monetary award of EUR 35,000.
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