Research

Wolf-Dietrich Hardt is distinguished for many important contributions to the field of infection biology. He has worked at the Institute of Microbiology at ETH Zurich since 2001. His research focusses on enteropathogenic bacteria, i.e. Salmonella Typhimurium diarrhea. He is best known for the identification of Salmonella virulence factors, his studies of Salmonella within-host-evolution and his work on the mucosal immune responses initiating the diarrheal disease. His work on the phenotypic diversity of S. Typhimurium populations in the hosts gut and the cooperation between subpopulations with different virulence phenotypes has sparked a new area of infection biology.