Willem van Schaik

@wvschaik.bsky.social

7161 Followers 1062 Following

Microbiology, microbiome, antimicrobial resistance. Sometimes UK politics. Head of Research of the School of Infection, Inflammation and Immunology, University of Birmingham. Also Co-Director of @target-amr.bsky.social.

A Rothko painting A great background with an orange rectangle at the bottom.
A plastic England flag next to an arrow sign indicating a public footpath
A photo of Lionel Messi bathing a baby Lamine Yamal.
These aggregations provide some continuity in subject analysis through the transition from JACS to the HECoS and to other schemes such as those used by QAA. This will improve consistency across the sector. Whereas the CAH has been designed to act as a bridge between HECoS and JACS, these are, however, two distinct coding frames, with HECoS having been developed in part to allow for more robust coding to address inconsistencies in coding using the JACS framework, and to remove limitations imposed by the JACS structure. As such, analysis between HECoS and JACS using this Common Aggregation Hierarchy will only provide indicative comparisons for time series analysis.
Prof Kevin Foster lecturing before slide with the text 'Knowledge of microbial physiology and metabolism is a prerequisite to understanding mechanisms of pathogenicity, Cole 2012'.
Vote Count Binface for Clacton. Two bar graphs of Reform 48.2% and Count Binface 0.2% are almost the same size. An error points to the second bar with the text 'Only Binface Can Beat Farage'.
A black and white photo of platforms at a train station (Crewe, England). There is no roof but the metal girders are still there.
Donald Trump has been speaking in the Oval Office just now, alongside Republican senator Ted Cruz. Cruz just thanked the US president for “getting rid of that ridiculous red card” – in reference to Folarin Balogun. On behalf of all Americans, thank you for getting rid of that ridiculous red card... it was spectacular. There was a reason the Fifa [peace] trophy sat here for as long as it did. Trump added: The status is, we have the press. They don’t want to know anything soccer/football. Fortunately, they won’t be asking any questions on that. Nobody cares about that, right? This is about the Trump accounts, which are absolutely incredible for children.
Prof Shimon Sakaguchi introducing the field of immunology, immune tolerance and autoimmunity
A TV presenter is explaining an attack by England on a blackboard
A line-up of England with completely mangled names, including 9 Harry, 19 Ollie Kane and 26 Jarrel Rashford
Traditional Chicken Maryland Served with breaded pineapple, banana, bacon. €22.95
A screenshot of footpathmap.co.uk, taking while on the summit of Croagh Patrick
A photo of a slide
A photo of a conference room
A photo of three colour pairs or socks
Jaime Garcia Iglesias presenting his talk
Five people on a stage, with a screen introducing them
Claas Kirchhelle presenting a slide on the history of antibiotics
A comic with a phylogenetic tree. The background is the opening slide of a conference
A photo of the Green Heart of the University of Birmingham campus during sunset. In the centre of the photo is a tall redbrick clock tower, in the foreground is a green park landscape
A headline from the Observer Typhoid Mandy Cat Neilan The casualties of the Mandelson appointment
Pitch view of Wembley Stadium just before kick-off
A cartoon. Trump on a bike with a stick: NATO sucks Trump puts stick in front wheel: invades Iran Trump lies in the grass, after falling off his bike: why is Europe doing this to me!
Gerry Wright in front of a large screen with the text: Lesson: if you do the same thing, you get the same result
A photo from a moving train of green field with a completely straight horizon
A screenshot of The Observer in which Rino Rappuoli and the process of reverse vaccinology are described.
Screenshot from Threads Trump demanded 7 countries join a coalition to secure Hormuz. Japan said no Australia said no UK said 'we're looking into it' China hasn't responded So far - zero countries have said yes Reply Hi, I'm British 'were looking into it' is British for 'no'
A photo from a television screen, on BBC News. I am on a screen on the left, the ticker reads Coronavirus:UK - Scientists say managing spread by 'herd immunity' is not viable.
An entrance gate with towers that look like Tower bridge and red British phone boxes.
A view through a neo-gothic porch to a waterfall in a forest
The Green Heart of the University of Birmingham campus with a sign 'feel free to use the beanbags but please return thank you'
A photo of a fish dish with tomatoes and green splodges.
A red and tan Australian working kelpie standing next to a canal. A white ball is floating in the water.
Selfridges, Birmingham
Yesilgoz in a tank with a flag of the Netherlands. It is photoshopped: the original is of Margaret Thatcher in a tank
Nicole Dubilier is standing in front of her opening slides that says 'Eating your microbiome: nutritional symbioses between chemosynthetic bacteria and marine invertebrates'
‘Discovery science’ and funding cuts Sir, You report that UK Research and Innovation, the government science funder, is significantly cutting physics research (“Science hopes take a hit as Labour cuts physics funding”, Jan 30). It is also rumoured that similar cuts will be made throughout the scientific disciplines. The cuts appear to reduce fundamental discovery research, the bedrock of science, despite assurances that was not the intention. There is an unfortunate lack of clarity, communication and sufficient consultation about what is being planned. This requires correction. A major issue may be that mission-orientated research is being confused with curiosity-driven discovery research. Both are needed but policymakers often underestimate the importance of discovery science. If it is not properly supported, we lose the seed-corn of discovery research, harming subsequent science translation, societal improvement and economic growth. Sir Paul Nurse President, the Royal Society, London SW1
A Tupla chocolate bar wrapping. Double layer liquorice.
By contrast, in Growth of the Soil the main character, Izak, encapsulates the nobility of the working man, exuding the sweat and toil reminiscent of the Nazi slogan Blut und Boden (“Blood and Soil”) and so impressed the Nazis that the book was distributed to the soldiers fighting in Norway. Joseph Goebbels admired the book so much he invited Hamsun and his wife Marie to Berlin in May 1943 and in return for such agreeable hospitality Hamsun gave Goebbels his Nobel medal
A stage map of the 3rd stage of the Tour de France 2024 from Welshpool to Cardiff
A cartoon of a man holding a large present. The label reads 'Erwin'. The text below the cartoon is 'Christmas morning was always tense at the Schrödingers'
A band on stage. Audience in silhouette from the back. There is a sign 'Castle And Falcon' above the stage.
Tableau No. IV; Lozenge Composition with Red, Gray, Blue, Yellow, and Black, c. 1924/1925, Piet Mondriaan
A photo of a calendar. The bottom half shows the calendar for February 2026. The top half is a photo of a black fungus growing on an agar plate
A black and white of a bridge and a canal. There is a boat in the canal with a music band in it. On shore, there is an open truck with another music band on it.
At the very heart of the Nazis’ so-called “race science” was the idea that our blood is where our destiny lies. In Mein Kampf, Hitler claims that purity of the blood is what enables individuals to make “correct” decisions and bonds a nation together, and its contamination through racial mixing is what causes individuals to act “incoherently” and leads civilisations to their doom. The most troubling thing about Hitler’s DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator is that those involved in making it may have read these passages carefully then continued to make the programme in the way they did anyway.
From left to right: Willem, Freya, Jess and Rob. We are standing in front of a wall with a congratulations banner and some left-over Halloween decorations.
A map of the Midlands and the South of England, with sewage overflow events indicated by poo emojis. The South East of England is covered in poo emojis. The rest of England is mostly green, with some poo emojis in the South West and across the Midlands
From left to right: Rivie Mayele-Tamina, Tess Johnson, Paul Flowers, Nikki Adderley, Steph Johnson, Kate Baker and me. We are standing in front of a large 1930s yellow-brick building.
A dirty and worn sponge on a sink.
Headline in the Guardian. Trump warns pregnant women not to take paracetamol making contentious autism claim.
The University of Nottingham traces its origins to both the founding of an adult education school in 1798, and the University Extension Lectures inaugurated by the University of Cambridge in 1873—the first of their kind in the country.[10] However, the foundation of the university is generally regarded as being the establishment of University College Nottingham, in 1881 as a college preparing students for examinations of the University of London.
A screenshot of Google Maps of Oxbridge, Dorset
A photo of a book cover Utterly Lazy and Inattentive Martin Parr in Words and Pictures Martin Parr Wendy Jones
A walking tour of Le Puy de Peyre Arse