Our lab studies the complex interactions of microorganisms (some of the current projects are depicted on the right). Interactions between microbes, their environment, or their host are essential for global cycles and play a crucial role in health and disease. We deploy a community systems biology approach that involves both experimental and computational methods to unravel genome organization and community composition, metabolism, and exchanges microbes are engaged in. We predict outcomes in complex microbial ecosystems and design successful intervention that selectively alter microbiome. This targeted manipulation enables the rational design of microbial  environments, benefitting e.g. the rhizosphere, as well as plant and human health. This interdisciplinary approach engages lab members of diverse backgrounds in computational biology and mathematics, molecular biology and genetics, as well as physiology and microbiology.

 

Defining the intertwined crosstalk between different community members allows us to understand how complex systems are organized and maintained, to predict how these systems develop and react to changes and to design targeted interventions.