Assist.-Prof. Dr. Anouk Willemsen

 

 

 

 

 

Assistant Professor of the Division of Microbial Ecology

☎ +43 1 4277 91242

✉ anouk.willemsen@univie.ac.at

Viruses are major but often overlooked players in ecological interactions. They are ubiquitous in nature, infecting organisms across all domains of life. Viruses have evolved many different shapes, sizes and types of genome organisation, which allows them to thrive in different environments. Research in Anouk Willemsen’s group focuses on the evolutionary genetics and genomics of microbes, especially the ability of viruses to adapt (or not) to changes in their environments.

Anouk’s group employs a range of molecular and microbiology techniques, experimental evolution, sequencing, genomics, phylogenetics and bioinformatics. Anouk has received two Marie Skłodowska-Curie grants and an ERC Starting Grant (2021) to investigate the role of mobile genetic elements in the ecology and evolution of giant viruses. She is the co-lead of an FWF project focused on studying giant viruses in the wild.

Links

» Group Website

» ORCID

» Bluesky

» ResearchGate

» WoS

Join the Team

If you are interested in joining our team, explore our open positions and learn more about available PhD and postdoc stipends here.

Teaching

To view Anouk Willemsen's teaching activities at the University of Vienna, visit u:find.

Group Members

 Publications

Showing entries 1 - 6 out of 25
Arthofer, P., Panhölzl, F., Delafont, V., Hay, A., Reipert, S., Cyran, N., Wienkoop, S., Willemsen, A., Sifaoui, I., Arberas-Jiménez, I., Schulz, F., Lorenzo-Morales, J., & Horn, M. (2024). A giant virus infecting the amoeboflagellate Naegleria. Nature Communications, 15(1), Article 3307. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-47308-2
Picard, M. A. L., Leblay, F., Cassan, C., Willemsen, A., Daron, J., Bauffe, F., Decourcelle, M., Demange, A., & Bravo, I. G. (2023). Transcriptomic, proteomic, and functional consequences of codon usage bias in human cells during heterologous gene expression. Protein Science, 32(3), Article e4576. https://doi.org/10.1002/pro.4576
Arthofer, P., Delafont, V., Willemsen, A., Panhölzl, F., & Horn, M. (2022). Defensive symbiosis against giant viruses in amoebae. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 119(36), Article e2205856119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2205856119
Willemsen, A., & G. Bravo, I. (2021). Ecological opportunity, radiation events and genomic innovations shaped the episodic evolutionary history of papillomaviruses. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.08.982421
Willemsen, A., van den Boom, A., Dietz, J., Bilge Dagalp, S., Dogan, F., Bravo, I. G., Ehrhardt, A., & Ehrke-Schulz, E. (2020). Genomic and phylogenetic characterization of ChPV2, a novel goat PV closely related to the Xi-PV1 species infecting bovines. Virology journal, 17(1), Article 167. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12985-020-01440-9
Borvető, F., Bravo, I. G., & Willemsen, A. (2020). Papillomaviruses infecting cetaceans exhibit signs of genome adaptation following a recombination event. Virus Evolution, 6(1), Article veaa038. https://doi.org/10.1093/ve/veaa038