Ruben Hartkoorn leads a research team on antibiotic drug discovery, development and innovation at the Institut Pasteur of Lille, France. Ruben’s research team is focused on the discovery and development of novel classes of antibacterials, the development of efflux pump inhibitors to revert AMR in multidrug resistant Enterobacterales infection, and developing biomimetic siderophore-antibiotic conjugates to improve antibiotic penetration.
Ruben received his PhD from the University of Liverpool in the UK after research studying the role of eukaryotic efflux and influx pumps on the pharmacology of drugs against HIV and tuberculosis. Before joining INSERM in 2015 and launching his group, Ruben performed postdoctoral research investigating rifampicin tolerance at EPFL and also investigating drugs against toxoplasma and malaria at the University of Geneva, both in Switzerland.