Leitung

Biosketch and Research

Dirk Haller is Director of the Institute for Food & Health (ZIEL) and Professor for Nutrition and Immunology (Chair) at the Technical University of Munich. He received his academic training at the University of Hohenheim, graduating in Nutrition Science and Food Technology, and completed his education with a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology. Following periods of research in Switzerland (Nestlé Research Center) and USA (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), he received an Emmy Noether carreer award from the German Research Foundation (DFG) to work at TUM. He declined international professorships in Canada (University of Alberta) and Switzerland (ETH Zurich) and is Kavli Frontiers of Science alumni (US National Academy of Science and Humboldt Foundation). He recently received the Main Award of the German Society of Medical Microbiology (DGHM). 

The main areas of reseach of Prof. Haller are dedicated to the understanding of gut health and the pathogenesis of inflammation-related chronic disorders such as inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and colorectal cancer (CRC). Nutrition and the intestinal microbiome are prime environmental factors and play a pivotal role in the developement of these complex pathologies. A key question is of how these environmental factors integrate their signals into host functions. In this context, he suggests that the intestinal epithelium provides a dynamic interface to sense these nutritional and microbial factors by integrating innate immune recognition mechanisms and cell stress responses (unfolded protein responses; UPR). In the past years, he and his group generated a variety of novel tissue-specific mouse models and identified an essential role of unfolded protein responses (UPR) in the regulation of gut homeostasis. Failure of organelle-specific (endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria) UPR signaling contributes to chronic inflammation and tumorigenesis. Gnotobiotic studies in germ-free models identified novel mechanisms of microbe-host interactions and the impact of nutritionin inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and colorectal cancer (CRC). Human intervention trials support the mechanistic studies in models and aim at defining the relevance of microbiome signatures in healthy populations (prospective cohort KORA and infants) and patients (IBD and CRC).

Prof. Haller estabished in the past years a comprehensive research program to unravel the role of the gut microbiome in health and disease. This program is integrated into TUM cooperate research center ZIEL - Institute for Food &Health. Novel infrastructure and technology platforms, including microbiome-related next-generation sequencing (NGS) and gnotobiotic mouse housing, are estabished and allow cutting-edge research at the interface of nutrition science and biomedicine.