Johannes R Björk, Clinical ecologist

Main research areas

• Role of the gut microbiome in cancer immunotherapy
• Role of the gut microbiome in solid organ transplantation
• Role of microbiome dynamics in determining health and disease

The overall goal of my research is to understand the complex and highly dynamic relationship between microbiome and host, which I believe will be critical to unlocking the therapeutic potential of targeting the gut microbiome in humans. Throughout my career, I studied the microbiome in a wide range of host organisms, including marine sponges, wild baboons, and ‒ more recently ‒ humans. I use holistic approaches informed by well-established theories and concepts drawn from fields such as theoretical ecology, community ecology, and evolution. I couple these approaches with rigorous statistical methods borrowed from ecology, genomics, and network science, but adapted to the unique nature of high-throughput sequencing data, with the ultimate goal of creating microbiome-based interventions that can be used to benefit a wide range of patient populations.