Dr. Gerwald Koehler

Associate Director (OSU-Center for Health Sciences), Biochemistry and Microbiology

Dr. Gerwald Koehler currently serves as Chair and Professor of Microbiology in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology at OSU-CHS. His doctoral training was with Drs. Karl-Heinz Schleifer and Wolfgang Ludwig at the Technical University of Munich studying ribosomal RNAs as phylogenetic markers. Dr. Koehler’s postdoctoral research at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) focused on the fungal pathogen Candida albicans, a line of research he continued at the University of Würzburg, Germany. The advent of genomics and microarray-based transcriptomics in C. albicans brought him back to Dr. Nina Agabian’s laboratory at UCSF. He joined the OSU-CHS faculty in 2007. His research on beneficial bacterial interactions with C. albicans spawned Dr. Koehler’s engagement in microbiome science. He collaborates with neuroscientists (including Dr. Vazquez Sanroman (Project 5 RPL), toxicologists, and animal scientists (Dr. Salak-Johnson). Through cooperation with forensic scientists, he made next-generation sequencing available for microbiota profiling and bacterial genomics at OSU-CHS. Dr. Koehler is the go-to expert for human microbiome sample collection/processing, sequencing, and data analyses. He serves as site-PI for microbiota sequencing in the NOURISH-OK project (R01 DK127464). Dr. Koehler also promotes microbiome research when teaching medical students at the College of Osteopathic Medicine in Tulsa and the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah and graduate students in the Biomedical Sciences Program at OSU-CHS. He has mentored over forty graduate students, many of whom have careers as biomedical or forensic scientists, faculty members, or physicians. As department chair, he mentors and promotes the careers of faculty members in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, including Dr. Huang, Project 1 RPL. Fostering interdisciplinary and translational research with scientists from different disciplines, such as nutritionists, social scientists, and clinicians, is a crucial goal for his engagement in the Center. Thus, Dr. Koehler is prepared for his role as Associate Director of the OCMR-COBRE at OSU-CHS.