Matt Henke

I am from Cincinnati, Ohio and studied Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at the College of Wooster in Ohio. For my Ph.D., I investigated fungal natural products and metabolomics under Neil Kelleher at Northwestern University. And for my postdoc, I worked with Jon Clardy at Harvard Medical School to investigate molecules made by human-associated microbes that impact immune responses.

I am a chemist by training, with a special focus on microbial natural products and mass spectrometry. I have become increasingly fascinated by how our own microbial symbionts shape so many aspects of our biology. Despite their essential roles, there is so little chemical information there is in our understanding of the human microbiome’s role in our biology. My lab’s primary goal is to change that.

In my free time I nerd out about robots (and the eventual singularity), languages (both real and constructed), and maps. I like Gonzo.