Martijn Callens

Post-doctoral Researcher

Martijn Callens works as a postdoctoral researcher on the EU project ImpTox that assesses the impact of micro- and nanoplastics on human health. His specific focus is on microbial hazards associated with microplastic pollution. This includes investigating the impact of microplastic pollution on various aspects such as horizontal gene transfer rates, the emergence of antimicrobial-resistant strains, expression of virulence factors and the dispersal of pathogenic bacteria in the food chain.

Martijn obtained his MSc in Biology at Ghent University in 2010, with a focus on Ecology and Evolution. He completed his master thesis at the Marine Biology research group investigating copepod communities inhabiting lagoons on Zanzibar island, Tanzania.

After gaining some experience in the biotechnology industry and working as a teaching assistant, he obtained his PhD in 2017 on ‘Environmental dependency of host-microbiota interactions in Daphnia magna’ at the Aquatic Biology lab at KULeuven – KULAK under the supervision of Prof. Ellen Decaestecker. During his PhD, he was a visiting researcher at the Bioenvironmental Science lab at Osaka University, Japan.

After obtaining his PhD, he worked between 2017 and 2021 as a CNRS postdoctoral researcher at the Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE) in Montpellier. His research there focussed on the role of codon usage bias for horizontal gene transfer between bacteria. This research incorporated both computational and experimental approaches for studying bacterial evolution.

Contact & Bibliography:

Martijn Callens

Links:

Martijn Callens on ORCID