I have been a post-doc in the group of Prof. Thomas Clavel (AG Clavel) in Aachen since 2017. My research interests focus on the functional potential of the human gut microbiome, both on the species level as well as with individual proteins. The aim of to modulate the human gut to improve host health.
A large portion of the gut microbiome remains uncultured, termed the "dark matter". I have contributed to the valid naming of >100 bacterial species. To help others, I have produced Protologger, a tool designed to simplify the process of describing novel taxa. Protologger provides multiple lines of evidence for taxonomic placement as well as functional profiling and the ecological occurrence of the input novel taxa. Protologger can now be installed locally via Conda or used via the website; protologger.de
A main focus of my work is on the functional role of each species and how they contribute to host phenotypes. Over the last few years I have been working to identify which bacterial species contain and express lipases and how they contribute to
Please feel free to contact me about potential collaborations or questions relating to my research.
Universitätsklinikum Aachen, Pauwelsstr. 30, Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia 52074, Germany
Hitch Research