Dr. Michael Zimmermann leads the Zimmermann Group at EMBL Heidelberg, where he investigates how gut microbiota metabolize drugs, nutrients, and environmental compounds—and how this shapes host physiology. Since August 2019, he has headed this research unit, supported by a prestigious ERC Starting Grant.
He received his PhD in 2015 from ETH Zurich (metabolomics and systems biology) and completed postdoctoral training at Yale University, focusing on host–microbiome metabolic interactions . His team combines high-throughput mass spectrometry, bacterial genetics, gnotobiotic mouse models, and computational modeling to map microbial biotransformation pathways and predict their impact on drug pharmacokinetics and host metabolism. Among his notable contributions is the 2019 Nature publication on mapping human microbiome drug metabolism by gut bacteria and their genes, and mechanistic studies on microbiota-drug interactions and vitamin metabolism in Cell Host & Microbe.
Contact
Dr. Michael Zimmermann
Group Leader – Metabolic Microbiome–Host Interactions
European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Heidelberg
Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit (EMBL–Heidelberg University)