Ruth E. Ley

Ruth E. Ley
Born
England, UK
OccupationsDirector of the Department of Microbiome Science at the Max Planck Institute for Biology, Tübingen, Germany.
Known forThe ecology and evolutionary history of the human gut microbiome.
Academic background
EducationBA, Integrative Biology, 1992, University of California, Berkeley
PhD, 2001, University of Colorado, Boulder
Academic work
InstitutionsMax Planck Institute
Cornell University
Washington University in St. Louis
Websiteleylab.com

Professor Ruth E. Ley is an internationally recognised microbial ecologist and a world expert on the ecology and evolution of the human gut microbiome. She is currently director of the Department of Microbiome Science[1] at the Max Planck Institute for Biology, Tübingen, Germany.

Early life and education

Ley spent her early life in England and France, and attended Gunn High School in Palo Alto, California. She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley and her PhD at the University of Colorado Boulder.[2] She worked as a NASA-NRC Post Doctoral Research Fellow with Norman R. Pace on the phylogenetic diversity of the Guerrero Negro hypersaline microbial mats, showing them to be the most diverse microbial systems yet characterised[3][4]. In 2004, she moved to Washington University School of Medicine to work with Jeffrey I. Gordon on the mammalian gut microbiome within the contexts of human obesity and mammalian evolution.

Career

She was named an Instructor at Washington University School of Medicine in 2005 and Research Assistant Professor two years later. While working with Jeffrey I. Gordon, Ley showed for the first time that obesity shapes the microbial ecology gut, similarly in humans and in mice [5][6]. She also laid the groundwork for understanding the evolutionary origins of the human gut microbiome with the first large-scale characterisation of the mammalian gut microbiome, which illustrated how host phylogeny, physiology and diet combine to shape the microbiomes of the mammalian gut [7].

Ley joined the faculty of the Department of Microbiology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in 2008, as an Assistant Professor. She was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2013, and was jointly appointed to the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell. While at Cornell, Ley conducted pioneering work on the microbiome changes that occur during pregnancy, showing that microbiome diversity is changed from the first to the third trimester, and that the altered microbiota can trigger changes in metabolism in the mother that may support fetal growth[8]. She also conducted the first heritability [9]and genome-wide association studies that showed the genotype of the host can shape gut microbiome community structure [10]. During her time at Cornell, she also started working (with Andrew Gewirtz, Georgia State University) on how the innate immune receptor Toll-like receptor 5 (TLR5) controls the motility of the microbiome [11].

While at Cornell University, in 2009 she was named a Beckman Young Investigator (Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation); in 2010 she was the recipient of the Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering[12] from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation; she received a National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award in 2010; and in 2014 the Young Investigator Award from the International Society for Microbial Ecology.[13]

Ley was appointed a Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society, and Director of the Department of Microbiome Science at the Max Planck Institute for Biology in 2016 [14]. At the MPI for Biology, she continues to work on the evolutionary origins of the human gut microbiome. Her team has published ground-breaking work showing co-diversification of humans with species of the gut microbiome: they have identified species whose evolutionary histories match those of their human hosts [15]. These species have traits consistent with strict host association, including reduced genomes, loss of oxygen tolerance, and loss of functions, as well as vertical transmission between generations. About a third of these codiversified microbiota are members of the Lachnospiraceae family. Ley's research program looks into the host adaptations and physiological impacts of these human symbionts, and has shown that they encode "silent flagellins", which can bind host TLR5 without causing a pro-inflammatory response, due to the lack of a previously uncharacterised allosteric binging site [16]. This is the basis for her Advanced European Research Council Grant "SilentFlame" which explores the role of silent flagellins in inflammatory disease.[17]

Since joining the Max Planck Society, Ley has been the recipient of the 2020 Otto Bayer Award and the Jung Prize for Medicine. She was also elected a Fellow of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina[18], European Molecular Biology Organization[19], and the American Academy of Microbiology. Every year since 2017, she has been included in the list of Highly Cited Researchers.

The following Post-Doctoral Researchers who trained with Ruth Ley have gone on to independent academic research careers:

  • Omry Koren (Professor, Bar Ilan University, Israel)
  • Elizabeth Johnson (Associate Professor, Cornell University, USA)
  • Angela Poole (Assistant Professor, Cornell University, USA)
  • Sara Di Rienzi (Assistant Professor, Rutgers University, USA)
  • Taichi Suzuki (Assistant Professor, Arizona State University, USA)
  • Sara Clasen (Assistant Professor, University of Tennesse, Knoxville, USA)
  • Kelsey Huus (Assistant Professor, University of Ottowa, Canada)(starts Summer 2026)

Awards

  • 2001 NASA Astrobiology Research Associateship, National Research Council (USA)
  • 2001 National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (USA)
  • 2007 Kavli Fellow, US National Academy of Sciences
  • 2009 Beckman Young Investigator, Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation
  • 2009 Hartwell Investigator
  • 2009 Scholar, Pew Biomedical Foundation (declined)
  • 2010 Fellow in Science and Engineering, David and Lucile Packard Foundation
  • 2010 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award
  • 2014 Young Investigator’s Award, International Society for Microbial Ecology
  • 2016 Honorary Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tübingen
  • 2016 Member, Max Planck Society
  • 2017–2025 Thompson ISI Highly Cited Researcher
  • 2018 Ernst Jung Prize for Medicine
  • 2018 Member, European Academy of Microbiology
  • 2019 Fellow, American Academy of Microbiology
  • 2019 Member, European Molecular Biology Organization
  • 2020 Member, German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
  • 2020 Otto Bayer Award
  • 2023 Charles Donovan Microbiome Award
  • 2024 ERC Advanced Grant "SilentFlame"
  • 2025 Jürgen Manchot Guest Professor for Experimental Infection Medicine, Heinrich-Heine-University of Düsseldorf

References

  1. ^ "The Ley Lab".
  2. ^ "Prof. Ruth Ley, Ph.D." mpg.de. Archived from the original on January 23, 2021. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
  3. ^ Pennisi, Elizabeth (May 29, 2009). "Gut Reactions". Science. 324 (5931): 1136–1137. doi:10.1126/science.324_1136. PMID 19478161. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
  4. ^ Ley, Ruth E.; Harris, J. Kirk; Wilcox, Joshua; Spear, John R.; Miller, Scott R.; Bebout, Brad M.; Maresca, Julia A.; Bryant, Donald A.; Sogin, Mitchell L.; Pace, Norman R. (May 2006). "Unexpected diversity and complexity of the Guerrero Negro hypersaline microbial mat". Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 72 (5): 3685–3695. doi:10.1128/AEM.72.5.3685-3695.2006. ISSN 0099-2240. PMC 1472358. PMID 16672518.
  5. ^ Ley, Ruth E.; Bäckhed, Fredrik; Turnbaugh, Peter; Lozupone, Catherine A.; Knight, Robin D.; Gordon, Jeffrey I. (August 2, 2005). "Obesity alters gut microbial ecology". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 102 (31): 11070–11075. doi:10.1073/pnas.0504978102. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 1176910. PMID 16033867.
  6. ^ Ley, Ruth E.; Turnbaugh, Peter J.; Klein, Samuel; Gordon, Jeffrey I. (December 2006). "Human gut microbes associated with obesity". Nature. 444 (7122): 1022–1023. doi:10.1038/4441022a. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 17183309.
  7. ^ Ley, Ruth E.; Hamady, Micah; Lozupone, Catherine; Turnbaugh, Peter J.; Ramey, Rob Roy; Bircher, J. Stephen; Schlegel, Michael L.; Tucker, Tammy A.; Schrenzel, Mark D.; Knight, Rob; Gordon, Jeffrey I. (June 20, 2008). "Evolution of mammals and their gut microbes". Science (New York, N.Y.). 320 (5883): 1647–1651. doi:10.1126/science.1155725. ISSN 1095-9203. PMC 2649005. PMID 18497261.
  8. ^ Koren, Omry; Goodrich, Julia K.; Cullender, Tyler C.; Spor, Aymé; Laitinen, Kirsi; Bäckhed, Helene Kling; Gonzalez, Antonio; Werner, Jeffrey J.; Angenent, Largus T.; Knight, Rob; Bäckhed, Fredrik; Isolauri, Erika; Salminen, Seppo; Ley, Ruth E. (August 3, 2012). "Host remodeling of the gut microbiome and metabolic changes during pregnancy". Cell. 150 (3): 470–480. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2012.07.008. ISSN 1097-4172. PMC 3505857. PMID 22863002.
  9. ^ Goodrich, Julia K.; Waters, Jillian L.; Poole, Angela C.; Sutter, Jessica L.; Koren, Omry; Blekhman, Ran; Beaumont, Michelle; Van Treuren, William; Knight, Rob; Bell, Jordana T.; Spector, Timothy D.; Clark, Andrew G.; Ley, Ruth E. (November 6, 2014). "Human genetics shape the gut microbiome". Cell. 159 (4): 789–799. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2014.09.053. ISSN 1097-4172. PMC 4255478. PMID 25417156.
  10. ^ Goodrich, Julia K.; Davenport, Emily R.; Beaumont, Michelle; Jackson, Matthew A.; Knight, Rob; Ober, Carole; Spector, Tim D.; Bell, Jordana T.; Clark, Andrew G.; Ley, Ruth E. (May 11, 2016). "Genetic Determinants of the Gut Microbiome in UK Twins". Cell Host & Microbe. 19 (5): 731–743. doi:10.1016/j.chom.2016.04.017. ISSN 1931-3128. PMID 27173935.
  11. ^ Cullender, Tyler C.; Chassaing, Benoit; Janzon, Anders; Kumar, Krithika; Muller, Catherine E.; Werner, Jeffrey J.; Angenent, Largus T.; Bell, M. Elizabeth; Hay, Anthony G.; Peterson, Daniel A.; Walter, Jens; Vijay-Kumar, Matam; Gewirtz, Andrew T.; Ley, Ruth E. (November 13, 2013). "Innate and adaptive immunity interact to quench microbiome flagellar motility in the gut". Cell Host & Microbe. 14 (5): 571–581. doi:10.1016/j.chom.2013.10.009. ISSN 1934-6069. PMC 3920589. PMID 24237702.
  12. ^ "Ley, Ruth • The David and Lucile Packard Foundation". The David and Lucile Packard Foundation. June 18, 2024. Retrieved March 19, 2026.
  13. ^ "Ley Lab Wins Two Awards at 2014 ISME Meeting in Seoul, South Korea". cornell.edu. 2014. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
  14. ^ "Ruth E. Ley to become Director at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology". idw-online.de. November 16, 2015. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
  15. ^ Suzuki, Taichi A.; Fitzstevens, J. Liam; Schmidt, Victor T.; Enav, Hagay; Huus, Kelsey E.; Mbong Ngwese, Mirabeau; Grießhammer, Anne; Pfleiderer, Anne; Adegbite, Bayode R.; Zinsou, Jeannot F.; Esen, Meral; Velavan, Thirumalaisamy P.; Adegnika, Ayola A.; Song, Le Huu; Spector, Timothy D. (September 16, 2022). "Codiversification of gut microbiota with humans". Science. 377 (6612): 1328–1332. doi:10.1126/science.abm7759. ISSN 0036-8075. PMC 10777373. PMID 36108023.
  16. ^ Clasen, S. J.; Bell MEW; Borbón, A.; Lee, D. H.; Henseler, Z. M.; de la Cuesta-Zuluaga, J.; Parys, K.; Zou, J.; Wang, Y.; Altmannova, V.; Youngblut, N. D.; Weir, J. R.; Gewirtz, A. T.; Belkhadir, Y.; Ley, R. E. (2023). "Science". Science Immunology. 8 (79): eabq7001. doi:10.1126/sciimmunol.abq7001. PMID 36608151. Retrieved March 17, 2026.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: article number as page number (link)
  17. ^ "Ruth Ley erhält Advanced Grant des Europäischen Forschungsrates". Ruth Ley erhält Advanced Grant des Europäischen Forschungsrates (in German). April 12, 2024. Retrieved March 17, 2026.
  18. ^ "Ruth Ley". leopoldina.org. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
  19. ^ "EMBO elects 56 new Members". embo.org. June 11, 2019. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
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