Jan De Waele is a surgery-trained intensivist and works at the surgical ICU of the Ghent University Hospital in Belgium. Clinical interests include severe infections and abdominal catastrophes such as the abdominal compartment syndrome. He has a specific interest in infections in critically ill patients and his research activities currently focus on optimising antibiotic therapy in severely ill, infected patients to improve outcome and combat resistance development. He serves as President-Elect of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine.