![](/sites/default/files/styles/bg_layout_mobile_1x/public/images/groups/Hildebrand%20Group/Hildebrand-group-hero.jpg?itok=T6ECfy44)
Biography
Falk is a Group Leader working across both the Earlham Institute and the Quadram Institute.
Falk is a bioinformatician with a passion for microbial ecosystems, bacterial evolution and developing computational systems to tackle these subjects in a combined perspective. Falk joined Earlham Institute in early 2019, developing metagenomic tools for tracking bacterial strains at high resolutions, to predict their genomic capabilities and explore their associations to diseases.
During his early career, Falk was working at the University of Constance (Germany) and the University of Sussex (UK) on bacterial evolution and tracking outbreaks of pathogens through following changes in their genomes. Moving from a genome centric view to a metagenomic view of whole microbial ecosystems, he worked during his PhD at the University of Brussels (Belgium) on bacterial associations to complex diseases such as IBD, obesity and Diabetes. For this, Falk developed bioinformatic pipelines to process 16S data (LotuS) as well as the statistical tools.
During his postdoc at EMBL Heidelberg (Germany), Falk continued his research on association to the human microbiome of complex diseases such as Diabetes and Parkinson’s disease, among others. His interests soon developed to track strains in the metagenomic datasets, as well as de novo assembling genomes from metagenomes. These techniques are mostly applied to the gut microbiome of mammals. Another interest of his is environmental metagenomics. For example, in 2018 he proved that in soils more fungi are usually connected to more antibiotic resistance in bacteria, and this is true on a local but also global scale.
Developing specialised algorithms that help answer complex questions on large biological datasets is the key ingredient for Falk’s scientific work.
Projects
Publications
Related reading.
![Close up of the Hamilton automated liquid handler](/sites/default/files/styles/max_650x650/public/2023-04/IMG_7459-hamilton.jpg?itok=6nP8_VKn)
Realising the potential of engineering biology through the Earlham Biofoundry
![Blue cornflowers on the edge of a field of golden cereal crop](/sites/default/files/styles/max_650x650/public/2024-04/field-grain-wildflower.jpg?itok=QqgXFdvA)
Joined-up genetics essential to save UK pollinators
![UK wildflower meadow](/sites/default/files/styles/max_650x650/public/2024-03/wildflower-meadow-hero.jpg?itok=PQnHG0Rn)
Genetic integrity needed for Biodiversity Net Gain to flower
![Two Arabidopsis seedlings photographed with bright light against a black backdrop](/sites/default/files/styles/max_650x650/public/2024-02/Arabidopsis-thaliana-2_1.jpg?itok=-U7hWopD)
Light-up plants and tunable roots signal new solutions for climate crisis
![Photo shot of water spatter from fisherman while throwing fishing net on the lake.](/sites/default/files/styles/max_650x650/public/2024-01/fish-farming-crop.jpg?itok=8Pbje5tD)
How the latest platforms are scaling-up our impact in aquaculture
![Aerial photo of a river winding through green marshlands](/sites/default/files/styles/max_650x650/public/2023-10/ERGA-Genomes-Hero.jpg?itok=cCFGRxh2)
The fish, the fungus, the grass, the bee - and the brassica
![Digital illustration of a file icon in the centre of the screen, in shades of blue and orange, with network lines moving towards it](/sites/default/files/styles/max_650x650/public/2023-12/COPO-data-storage-hero_0.jpg?itok=jBHJpfzS)
COPO: providing context through metadata
![Abstract visual of data lines crossing over each other](/sites/default/files/styles/max_650x650/public/2024-07/data-lines-visual.jpg?itok=I2H00azY)
Source of tilapia diversity now a threat to survival
![Macro photo of water droplets on a brassica plant](/sites/default/files/styles/max_650x650/public/2024-04/leaf-dew-water.jpg?itok=2IMaIhgY)
Earlham Institute and Tozer Seeds receive knowledge transfer award
![Glowing human heart made of neon particles](/sites/default/files/styles/max_650x650/public/2024-04/heart-genomics-abstract.jpg?itok=Vr8w50gZ)
Heart patients set to receive treatment tailored to their genetic and health information
![DNA strand made of small 'bubbles' dispersing out of the double helix structure](/sites/default/files/styles/max_650x650/public/2024-03/dna-disperse.jpg?itok=Fu7846ZN)
New genome assembly finds yeast variant is distinct species
![](/sites/default/files/styles/max_650x650/public/images/projects/Improving%20plants%20for%20biomanufacturing/improving-plants-patron-hero.jpg?itok=vJNNXUeP)
Science and Technology Secretary announces Engineering Biology investment
![Digital graphic of circlrs and lines representing networks, with a bright core in the middle.](/sites/default/files/styles/max_650x650/public/2024-01/Search-data-abstract_1.png?itok=35INFMFr)
Identifying criminals from a single cell
![Confocal microscopy image of a placozoa. Credit: Sebastian R. Najle/Centro de Regulación Genómica](/sites/default/files/styles/max_650x650/public/2024-01/MIcroscopy_Sebastian%20R.%20Najle_Centro%20de%20Regulaci%C3%B3n%20Gen%C3%B3mica.png?itok=SMOfQT2v)
£3m funding for project to chart cellular diversity on Earth
![Steam over hot geothermal springs in a mountain gorge.](/sites/default/files/styles/max_650x650/public/2023-10/Geothermal-springs.jpg?itok=K32v5CXG)