IHMC SEOUL 2026

Ruth Ley, Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen, Germany

Prof. Ruth Ley is the Director of Department of Microbiome Science at the Max Planck Institute for Biology in Tübingen, Germany. She is a microbial ecologist who studies the diversity, evolution and function of the human gut microbiome. A major focus of her research has been the evolutionary relationships between humans and their gut microbes. She demonstrated that host genetics contributes to microbiome composition and identified heritable microbial taxa associated with metabolic health. Through large-scale comparative studies, she showed that many gut microbes share an evolutionary history with their hosts, providing evidence for long-term host-microbe associations and codiversification. Her laboratory has also uncovered molecular mechanisms of host-microbiome interaction, including immune evasion of flagellins produced by commensal gut bacteria, and the integration of microbially derived lipids into host metabolic pathways.

Jingyuan Fu, University Medical Center Groningen, The Netherlands

Prof.  Jingyuan Fu is a professor of systems medicine in the University Medical Centre Groningen, the Netherlands and an elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW). She obtained a BSc in Biochemistry, a MSc in Biotechnology and Bioinformatics (cum laude), and a PhD in systems genetics (cum laude). Via this route she developed her research interest on host-microbe interactions in complex traits and diseases using integrative genomics approaches and aims to acquire a greater knowledge of how the human genome and the gut microbiome interact with each other and affect human health, in order to create better methods for disease prediction, prevention, and treatment. To accomplish this, her study combines with large-scale genetic and microbial association studies in big groups of individuals with functional studies using advanced bacterial culturing and organ-on-chip technologies.

Sean Gibbons, Institute for Systems Biology, USA

Dr Sean Gibbons earned his PhD in biophysics from the University of Chicago in 2015. He completed his postdoctoral work at MIT in 2018 and is currently Associate Professor at the Institute of Systems Biology, Seattle, USA.

His lab studies the ecology and evolution of microbial communities. In particular, Sean is interested in how host-associated bacterial communities influence the health and wellness of the host organism. His group designs computational and wet-lab tools for studying these complex systems. Ultimately, the Gibbons Lab aims to develop strategies for engineering the ecology of the gut microbiome to improve human health.

Jens Walter, University of Cork, Ireland

Prof. Jens Walter is Professor of Ecology, Food and the Microbiome at University College Cork and a Principal Investigator at APC Microbiome Ireland. He trained in food science and microbiology at the University of Hohenheim, Germany, before undertaking postdoctoral research in New Zealand and the United States. He began his independent career at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, later moving to the University of Alberta, Canada, where he held a prestigious Campus Alberta Innovates Program (CAIP) Chair, before relocating to Ireland. He is currently supported by a Science Foundation Ireland Research Professorship, one of the country’s most competitive research awards.

His research lies at the interface of evolutionary ecology of the gut microbiome and human nutrition, with a focus on the processes that shape host–microbiome interactions and how these can be leveraged to improve human health. He is internationally recognized for integrating ecological theory with microbiome science and for leading controlled human intervention studies investigating dietary and microbial strategies to modulate the gut microbiome. This work includes the development of the Non-Industrialized Microbiome (NiMe) diet, a translational approach aimed at restoring microbiome function through dietary change.

Eran Elinav, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

Prof. Eran Elinav, M.D., Ph.D. heads the Host-Microbiome Interaction lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel and the Microbiome & Cancer division, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Germany. He focuses on deciphering the molecular basis of host-microbiome interactions and their effects on health and disease, with a goal of personalizing medicine and nutrition. Prof. Elinav completed his medical doctor’s (MD) degree at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (magna cum laude), followed by a residency in internal medicine, and a physician-scientist position at the Tel Aviv Medical Center Gastroenterology institute. He received a PhD in immunology from the Weizmann Institute of Science, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University School of Medicine. From 2021-2025, he headed the Department of System’s immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, and, since 2021, he is an honorary professor at the University of Science & Technology of China.

André Marette, Université Laval, Canada

Symposium Chair

Dr. André Marette, professor in the Faculty of Medicine, Université Laval, is a researcher at the Research Centre of the Institut de Cardiologie et de Pneumologie de Québec.

His work focuses on the causes of obesity and cardiometabolic diseases, as well as the prevention and treatment of these pathologies. In particular, he studies the role of the intestinal microbiota and inflammation in the etiology and progression of diabetes, hepatic and cardiovascular diseases, and develops therapeutic strategies derived from the exploration of the microbiome.

Prof. Peter STENVINKEL, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden

Peter STENVINKEL is a Professor and senior lecturer at the Dept. of Renal Medicine, Karolinska University Hospital, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. Peter has published 710 original publications and reviews and >40 book chapters on various aspects of inflammation, wasting and metabolism in chronic kidney disease patients. Peter’s Hirsch index is 136. He has been cited more than 75.000 times and has presented >600 invited lectures at various international meetings and congresses in about 30 different countries and has received a prize for the best Swedish thesis in diabetology in 1994 and was a Baxter Extramural Grant awardee in 1996. Peter was a Karolina Prize awardee in 2005, a Vizenca Prize awardee in 2009 and received the Addis Gold Medal by the International Society of Renal Nutrition and Metabolism (ISRNM) for nutritional research in 2010. Peter was a member of the council of International Society of Nephrology (2007) and the European Renal Association (ERA-EDTA) (2007-2010), is an Editor of J Internal Medicine and was editor-in-chief of NDT-E 2010-2013. Peter received an honorary membership of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Nephrology in 2010 and of the Polish Society of Nephrology in 2012. Peter was an international National Kidney Foundation (NKF) awardee in 2012, is a fellow of ERA-EDTA and American Society of Nephrology (ASN) and since 2022 guest Professor at Maastricht University. Peter was the local President of ERA in Stockholm in 2024. Peter hosted the 19 Key Symposium on Planetary Health at Royal Academy of Sciences in May 2025 and in 2025 was elected member of Academia Europaea.

Prof. Patrick STOVER, Institute for Connecting Nutrition & Health, Florida State University, USA

Patrick J. STOVER, Ph.D., is a founding Director of the Institute for Connecting Nutrition and Health at Florida State University. As an international leader in biochemistry, agriculture and nutrition, Patrick’s research focuses on the biochemical, genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that underlie the relationships between nutrition, food fortification and human pathologies such as developmental anomalies, neuropathies and cancer. Patrick is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, also former president of the American Society for Nutrition and has served two terms on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Food and Nutrition Board.

Patrick received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from President Clinton, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers.

Prof. Paul SHIELS, Glasgow Geroscience Group, University of Glasgow, UK

Paul SHIELS is Professor of Geroscience at the University of Glasgow and founder and Director of the Glasgow Geroscience Group. Paul has over 200 publications and generated 10 patents in this field. Paul was a pioneer of telomere cloning and worked at PPL Therapeutics Roslin, including on Dolly the sheep. Paul has also pioneered the concept of the exposome of ageing and was subsequently the first to describe links between socioeconomic position, epigenetics, the microbiome and ageing. Paul’s ideas have been successfully tested in clinical trials. Paul’s current research portfolio comprises a broad investigation of the exposome of ageing, including nutritional senotherapies and development of biomarkers of ageing, including epigenetic clocks for normative ageing. Paul is Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the British Society for Research on Ageing, the world’s oldest charitable society for research on ageing and has acted as an expert on the Biology of Ageing on a number of national policy advising consortia, including providing evidence to the UK Government All Party Parliamentary Group on Longevity. Paul acts as Chair and as a panel member for a range of National and International Research Council panels. Paul has acted as CSO for Pathfinder Cell Therapy PLC and sits on the Scientific Advisory Boards and acts as a consultant for a range of pharmaceutical companies. Paul has a proven track record in public dissemination of his research, including the provision of expert commentary for the BBC and ABC TV networks and as a panellist at the Edinburgh International Science Festival and the Edinburgh International Book Festival.