Prof. Dr. Rudi Balling (55), currently Scientific Director of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig, has been recruited as Director of the future Centre for Systems Biology Luxembourg (CSBL)

He will join the multilingual research university in Luxembourg as of January 2010.

Born in the Eifel the renowned geneticist will pioneer biomedical research in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. «Putting Luxembourg on the international map of biology and genome research is an exciting challenge » says Balling.
The Centre for Systems Biology (Centre for Systems Biology – Luxembourg, CSBL) of the University is part of a major governmental initiative, with the strategic goal to develop Luxembourg into a competence centre of molecular medicine and research in the area of personalized medicine. The recently established « Integrated Biobank of Luxembourg » is also part of this important project. The CSBL is the second « Interdisciplinary Centre » of the University. Already at the beginning of 2009 the « Interdisciplinary Centre of Security, Reliability and Trust » was founded. The CSBL will cooperate very closely with an elite american partner institute, the « Institute for Systems Biology » in Seattle. The new centre will be located on the new university campus in Belval.
Rudi Balling has studied human and animal nutrition and received his Phd in Reproductive Biology from the University of Aachen. After his « Habilitation » in 1991 he carried out research in the Mount Sinai Research Hospital in Toronto, Canada and the Max Planck Institutes in Göttingen and Freiburg im Breisgau. 1993 he became director at the Helmholtz Center for Mammalian Genetics in Munich. In 2001 he took over the position as Scientific Director of the Helmholtz Center in Braunschweig, a research center with close to 700 employees. During the last 6 months Rudi Balling was a guest professor at the Broad Institute of MIT/Harvard University in Boston (USA).

Photo: Helmholtz-Zentrum für Infektionsforschung