Prof. Dr. Rudi Balling joined the RESIST Scientific Advisory Board on 1 November 2025. “I am delighted to be appointed to this committee and hope to contribute to the success of RESIST in this role,” says the internationally renowned expert in systems biomedicine and neurodegeneration. Prof. Balling brings decades of experience in researching complex biological processes and diseases as well as in committee work. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honorary memberships and is a former president of several scientific societies and organisations.
“We are particularly pleased to welcome Rudi Balling to our advisory board. With his exceptional expertise in genetics and infection research, he will enrich our committee in a special way. His commitment and visionary work have contributed significantly to the development of infection and immunity research in the Hanover/Braunschweig region into an important focus area,” says Prof. Förster.
Rudi Balling studied nutritional science at the University of Bonn and Washington State University, obtained his doctorate in Bonn and then conducted research at the Mount Sinai Research Centre in Toronto. He then headed research groups at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen and the Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology in Freiburg. In 1993, he took over as director of the Institute for Mammalian Genetics at the GSF Research Centre in Munich, now the Helmholtz Centre in Munich.
From 2001 to 2009, Rudi Balling was scientific director of the HZI in Braunschweig. Under his leadership, the HZI focused on infection research and the Society for Biotechnological Research (GBF) was renamed the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research. Prof. Balling then founded and headed the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine, which is dedicated to research into neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Four years ago, Prof. Balling took up a senior professorship at the University of Bonn. There, he conducts research on neurodegenerative diseases and systems biology processes at the Institute of Molecular Psychiatry and is also committed to promoting interdisciplinary projects and international cooperation.