Kelsey Huus Appointed Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa

After more than five years at the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen, postdoctoral researcher Dr. Kelsey Huus is leaving the institute to take up a new position as Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa, Canada.

We caught up with her just before she starts her new position in Canada to talk about her time in Tübingen, the challenges and achievements of her research, and the next steps ahead.

Starting a new position abroad during a global pandemic would be intimidating for anyone. For Kelsey Huus, however, joining the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen in early 2021 was also “a dramatic decision” filled with excitement and anticipation.

“I’d never been to Germany before in my life, and all of my interviews were via Zoom from Canada,” she recalls. “I remember spending the first two weeks alone in quarantine in a sublet apartment, trying to get a sense of Tübingen through the window.” When she finally emerged and tried speaking with her neighbors, she quickly realized “that the tiny bit of German I’d learned was completely inadequate.” Despite the uncertainty, she says she arrived “nervous, but also full of anticipation.”

What drew her most strongly to the institute was the atmosphere within the department and the opportunity to work with Ruth Ley. “The team in the department, and Ruth herself, have this wonderful energy,” she says. “I strongly admired the work that was being done here.” She was especially excited by the possibility of setting up a human cohort study, “the type of project that I was especially interested in pursuing.”

That project became the µHEAT study (“Microbial-Human Ecology and Temperature”), which explored why some people experience stronger fever and flu-like symptoms after vaccination than others. Conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, the study investigated how the gut microbiome and diet might influence vaccine side effects and inflammatory responses.

“It was a stressful and high-risk period of my postdoc,” she says of launching the project under tight timelines. “But in the end, we managed it.” By spring 2022, the team had recruited nearly 200 participants. One of the study’s major findings was that highly processed and high-fat diets may influence certain gut microbes in ways that amplify inflammatory responses after vaccination.

The study combined several different approaches, including temperature monitoring, blood sampling, and microbiome analysis. Participants recorded their temperature several times per day following vaccination, allowing the team to capture fever responses in unusually high detail. “We had the capacity to set up a new cohort, observe phenotypes in people, and ultimately explain and understand them using experimental approaches,” she says. For her, this combination of human studies and mechanistic microbiome research was one of the most rewarding aspects of her work in Tübingen.

The project also depended heavily on interdisciplinary collaboration. She worked closely with clinicians, microbiome researchers, and study participants throughout the process, while navigating the logistical and regulatory challenges of conducting a large human study during the pandemic. “Luckily, Ruth was very supportive of the idea,” she says, emphasizing how important that support was in helping the project move forward so quickly. She also credits collaborators at the Institute for Tropical Medicine in Tübingen for helping the study succeed during an especially demanding period.

“I still find it extraordinary that the first hypothesis turned out to be correct,” she says. The findings could eventually help researchers understand how dietary or microbiome interventions might reduce unpleasant vaccine side effects and improve vaccine acceptance.

Beyond the science, however, it is the people and the experience of living in Tübingen that she says will stay with her most strongly. “I will absolutely miss my wonderful labmates here in the Ley department, who are just the most supportive possible group of people,” she says.

As a Canadian living abroad for the first time, she says her years in Europe have been very special. “I will miss so many aspects of the atmosphere here: the cobbled streets and cheerful houses of the Tübingen Altstadt; the ability to hop on a train and go somewhere entirely new,” she says. “The history, the culture, the food, the language — I could go on.”

Now, she is preparing for the next step in her career as Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa, where the Huus Lab will open in July 2026. The lab will focus on how diet–microbiome interactions affect inflammatory health, both in vaccination and chronic disease.

“This new position is a dream job for me in every possible way,” she says. Scientifically, the environment in Ottawa offers ideal opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration and nutritional intervention studies. Personally, the move is equally special: “Ottawa is my hometown,” she says. “I’m delighted to have the chance to live near family again.”

Looking back, she says her time in Tübingen shaped both her scientific career and her personal life. From adapting to a new country during lockdown to building a major human cohort study from scratch, the experience challenged her in unexpected ways. At the same time, it reinforced the importance of supportive colleagues, collaborative science, and curiosity-driven research. “I can only hope I will have an excuse to come back and visit,” she says.