Jan Kluytmans did his medical training as well as specialization in Clinical Microbiology at Erasmus Medical University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The title of his PhD thesis in 1996, was: Nasal carriage of Staphylococcus aureus: the key to preventing staphylococcal disease. 

His scientific career focuses on the epidemiology and control of nosocomial infections, with a special interest in Staphylococcus aureus, surgical site infections and antimicrobial resistance. He has been involved in many national and international guidelines on infection control, especially those dealing with the control of MRSA and the prevention of surgical site infections. In 2006 he was appointed as Professor of Medical Microbiology and Infection Control at the VU university medical center in Amsterdam. In 2014 he moved to the University Medical Center Utrecht, Julius Center, where he leads several work packages within the Combacte program. In 2017 he was appointed as Professor of epidemiology of Healthcare-related infections.

Until July 2021 he worked in the Amphia Hospital in Breda/Oosterhout and St. Elisabeth Hospital and TweeSteden Hospital in Tilburg as a consultant Microbiologist.

Since October 2021 he is head of the department of medical Microbiology at the UMC Utrecht.

He has more than 300 papers in peer-reviewed journals and given more than 500 presentations and lectures.

UMCU coordinates the COMBACTE-NET and COMBACTE-MAGNET programs. Kluytmans is Principle investigator of two work-packages within this program that aim to detrmine the epidemiology of infections caused by S. aureus and P. aeruginosa in European ICU's and as the cause fo surgical site infections (S. aureus only).