Jens Walter

Jens Walter serves as the Professor of Ecology, Food, and the Microbiome at Unviersity College Cork and the APC Microbiome Ireland. His expertise lies at the interface of evolutionary ecology of the gut microbiome and human nutrition. His research focuses on the evolutionary and ecological processes that have shaped host-microbiome symbiosis and the translation of basic microbiome science into therapeutic and nutritional strategies. Dr. Walter and his collaborators have pioneered the application of ecological theory to elucidate ecological and nutritional factors that shape gut microbiomes and have achieved targeted modulations of microbiomes via dietary strategies and live microbes. Prof. Walter has published >150 peer-reviewed publications and is a ‘highly cited researcher’ according to the analytics company Clarivate.

Prof. Walter’s research has been featured on six occasions in the research highlights of Nature and Nature Reviews journals, and he has participated in several invitation-only workshops and think-tanks of the NIH, CIFAR (Canadian-based global organization that convenes extraordinary minds to address the most important questions facing science and humanity; https://www.cifar.ca/) and ILSI to discuss imminent issues of the microbiome field. He has led several provocative science commentaries with other opinion leaders that inter alia challenged current paradigms in the microbiome field that required critical assessment, such as the exaggeration of causal claims (Cell, 2020, 180:221-232), the definition of prebiotics (Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2015, 12:303-10), use of ‘human microbiota-associated mice’ (Cell Host and Microbe 2016, 19:575-578), and the ‘prenatal in utero microbiome’ (Microbiome 2017, 5(1):48 and Microbiome 2021, 9(1):5).