A Project for Young Scientists
The young scientist Robert Heyer recently completed his doctorate successfully with summa cum laude. Shortly afterwards, he succeeded in obtaining a grant from the DFG Academy for Young Researchers in Laboratory Medicine.
The Young Investigators Academy is a strategic funding instrument of the DFG, which is intended to prepare young scientists and academics for the independent implementation of research projects and to introduce them to their first own project management and the acquisition of third-party funding. At the end of the short project period of one year, the young researchers have the opportunity to apply to the DFG for a more extensive follow-up project.
In the new project, Dr. Heyer uses an already well-established system for the analysis of microbial communities. During his doctorate at the Department of Bioprocess Engineering in the (Team Microbial Communities / Dr. Dirk Benndorf) at the Faculty of Process and Systems Engineering, he already used this system to examine the bacterial inhabitants, alias the "living community", of biogas plants.
With the newly approved funds, Dr. Heyer would now like to take a closer look at the "living community" of the human intestine. This project is particularly interesting in view of the fact that deviations in the balance of the intestinal microbiome are associated with inflammatory intestinal diseases (e.g. Crohn's disease and chronic ulceritis) and even allergies or asthma.
Since the role of the intestinal community in the development, diagnosis and therapy of the above-mentioned diseases has not yet been sufficiently investigated, Dr. Heyer will devote himself to this topic in the following year, thus enriching the research spectrum of the Centre of Dynamic Systems CDS.