Hi, my name is Christian and I am a German-born scientist leading a lab at the Medical University of Graz. I work at the interface of Microbial Systems Biology, Microbial Ecology, and Computational Biology, which means I am interested in how all of the microbes, cells and molecules around and within us interact in order to form the stable ecological systems that populate virtually every surface of our planet including ourselves. In particular, I am interested how microorganisms interact with each other and their environment and what happens if those interactions are perturbed, for instance by disease or environmental changes. I strongly believe that we can leverage medical, biological, ecological, and environmental data to help us improve human health and to conserve our planet. However this will require an equitable, just, and diverse research community and society.

I love to learn new things and tinker and especially enjoy spending time with my family and dog. I also like to experiment and play around with different electronics. I enjoy sharing what I have learned and have taught many courses in academia and tech. If I am not doing any of that you will usually find me eating, cooking or baking.

If you want to know what I am currently up to follow me on bluesky, linkedin, or see my projects on github.

My lab at the Medical University of Graz is located within the Diagnostic and Research Institute of Hygiene, Microbiology and Environmental Medicine. We also are a part of the Austrian FWF Cluster of Excellence Microbiomes Drive Planetary Health.

We study the human gut microbiome by combining ecology, systems biology and metabolism. In particular, we investigate how microbes interact with each other, their host and their environment, and how those interactions affect health and disease. Our research includes microbial nutrient use and metabolism, the effects of microbes on dietary compounds and drugs, and the design of microbiome interventions. We combine computational approaches such as metagenomics, metabolomics and modeling with wet lab experiments, including single-cell culturomics. You can learn more about our research and our work on accessible science, software and teaching on the lab website.

Before that I studied signaling in microbial cultures and metabolic alterations in cancer (you can find more about that in my publications).