Dr Martin Jahn

Martin Jahn is a microbiologist, ecologist, and bioinformatician dedicated to understanding the intricate mechanisms of how microbes interact with our bodies and affect our health. He studied natural sciences with a focus on microbiology, ecology and bioinformatics at the University of Würzburg, Germany. During this time he conducted fieldwork on the spatial landscape ecology of Borrelia burgdorferi within host reservoirs as visiting scholar at Glasgow University with Prof Roman Biek.

Following his graduate studies, Martin Jahn was awarded a fellowship to pursue a Ph.D at the University of Kiel in the Collaborative Research Centre 1182 with Prof. Ute Hentschel. Here he studied the functional underpinnings of sponge symbioses, the oldest known animal-microbe symbiosis. His journey also took him to the University of Lausanne as a visiting scientist in 2018, where he worked with Professor Anders Meibom on correlative metabolic imaging. 

In 2019, Martin Jahn was awarded his Ph.D. (summa cum laude), and in 2020 received a fellowship from the Human Frontier Science Programme (HFSP) to continue his scientific training at the University of Oxford. At Oxford, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher with Professor Kevin Foster, focusing on the biogeography of the gut microbiome and its implications for disease resistance. This involved establishing new technologies to map the cellular organisation of the entire host-associated microbiota and to study structural microbiome changes in different disease contexts. This experience further shaped his view of the human body as a complex and diverse ecosystem in which microbial interactions play a critical role in maintaining health. 

Since October 2024, Martin Jahn is a group leader at the HZI Braunschweig, where he heads the Bacterial Infection Ecology group.