Guest Speaker: Dr. Sören Ocvirk (view profile in Research Directory)
Topic: Nutrition in Global Health: Using a Gut Microbiome Perspective to Understand how Diet affects Human Health
The Series directs special attention towards the added value of interdisciplinary and international cooperation in global health research. Every first Tuesday of the month, speakers share insights into their research projects while focusing on research processes, methods as well as lessons learned. Following the 30-minute speaker’s presentation, the Series encourages an academic exchange between the speaker and the audience in a 30-minute Q&A session.
In this edition of the GLOHRA Academy Series, Dr. Sören Ocvirk shares his research on the role of the gut microbiome in human health and the prevention of non-communicable diseases in the context of shifting dietary patterns in Sub-Saharan Africa. He is a postdoctoral fellow and project leader at the German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke (DIfE) and the ZIEL Institute for Food and Health at the Technical University of Munich, where he explores the health impacts of increasingly Westernized diets. His work specifically investigates how dietary changes influence the gut microbiome, with the goal of deepening our understanding of diet's effects on human health.