Our research focuses on understanding the ecological dynamics of human gut-associated microbial communities in healthy host-microbiome homeostasis and how their disturbance contributes to the risk of disease development. We apply quantitative approaches to population studies and intervention trials to identify the mechanisms that drive the dynamics of the gut ecosystem in health, the determinants of its resilience to perturbations, or the alterations that contribute to disease. By merging microbial evolutionary genomics, numerical ecology, and machine learning methods, we derive principles of microbial ecological dynamics and host-microbiome interactions from multi-omics datasets. In close collaboration with clinical partners, we especially investigate how the immune system and the gut microbiome interact in inflammatory conditions.

Positions held

Since 2022   
Professor of Mucosal Microbiology and Immunology, University Medical Center (UMC) JGU, and Adjunct Director, Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB), Mainz, Germany

2015 – 2022   
Postdoctoral Researcher, Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium

2011 – 2015   
Postdoctoral Researcher, Free University of Brussels (VU Brussel), Belgium

2010 – 2011   
Postdoctoral Researcher, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France

Education

2007 – 2010  
PhD in Genomics, Université Pierre et Marie Curie and Institut Pasteur, France

2005 – 2006  
PhD Programme in Computational Biology, Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Portugal

1997 – 2003  
Integrated master degree in Biology, Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, Portugal