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Dr. Silvia Gschwendtner

Head of the Working Group "Human Microbiomes" at the Research Unit Comparative Microbiome Analysis
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"The human microbiome provides many functions which are essential for our health. A dysbiosis of our microbiome consequently triggers disease. Thus, it is of prime importance to identify keystone microbial taxa which determine the functionality of the microbiome and develop strategies to promote their activity."

"The human microbiome provides many functions which are essential for our health. A dysbiosis of our microbiome consequently triggers disease. Thus, it is of prime importance to identify keystone microbial taxa which determine the functionality of the microbiome and develop strategies to promote their activity."

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Academic Pathway

Silvia Gschwendtner holds a diploma in Biology and a PhD in Natural Sciences.

She started her career as Research Fellow at Helmholtz Munich, followed by two years at the Technical University Munich. At that time she strongly focused on the analysis of consequences of the release of transgenic plants for the soil microbiome, including questions of horizontal gene transfer of antibiotic resistance genes. Afterwards, she returned to Helmholtz Munich, focusing her work on the role of microbiomes in different environments and their impact on the development of diseases. Nowadays she is involved in major activities at Helmholtz Munich, where cohorts are used to assess drivers for health and disease. Silvia is responsible for the assessment of microbiomes in these studies.

Silvia has strong background in the molecular analysis of microbiomes using high throughput sequencing approaches: She established several bioinformatics pipelines, which help her to identify core microbiomes and keystone species based on the obtained sample materials.

Work and Expertise

Microbiome Human health Bioinformatics Sequencing

Dr. Silvia Gschwendtner about her Research:

"Human microbes are key players in metabolism and immune response and, consequently, perturbation of the complex microbial communities impacts human health. To learn more about microbiota and their involvement in disease we need to get hands on new isolates and study their physiological properties. However, human body sites are not isolated and their microbiomes interact and influence each other. All this must be considered when investigating the complex role of microbes as possible cause of human disease."

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Professional Background

2022

Head of Working Group “Human Microbiomes” at COMI

2017

Research Scientist at COMI

Publications

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