Felix Sommer

Group Leader of Functional Host Microbiome Research

Research Interest

I received my PhD in cell biology in 2010 from Kiel University, performed my postdoctoral training in the lab of Fredrik Bäckhed in Gothenburg, Sweden, from 2010 to 2015 and then joined the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology (IKMB) of Kiel University, where I head the Systems Immunology Microbiome Platform and the junior research group “functional host-microbiome analyses”. Our research focuses on the molecular interactions between the host mucosal immune system, the microbiome and environmental factors such as nutrition, along with consequences for host fitness and their dysregulation in disease (infection, inflammatory bowel disease, cancer, malnutrition). In our daily work we mainly employ conditional in vivo models, gnotobiotics and Next-Generation-Sequencing-based methods such as 16S profiling, metagenomics or RNA sequencing. Our main goal is to develop novel treatment options for inflammatory and metabolic diseases by targeting the intestinal microbiome, for example using nutritional or probiotic interventions.

Dissertation – 2010, Kiel University