Olivier Cunrath

Dr. Olivier Cunrath is a “chargé de recherche” at the CNRS within the UMR 7242 Biotechnology and Cell Signaling unit, where he conducts his work in the “Metals and Microorganisms” team. His research focuses on metal homeostasis in microbial communities and its role in host–pathogen interactions.

Olivier Cunrath earned his PhD in 2015 from the University of Strasbourg under the supervision of Dr. Isabelle Schalk. During his thesis, he investigated the iron homeostasis in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a major opportunistic human pathogen, thus laying the foundations of his expertise in microbial metal metabolism. He then joined the Biozentrum at the University of Basel for his first postdoctoral position in the laboratory of Prof. Dirk Bumann, where he studied iron homeostasis in Salmonella during systemic infection, with a particular focus on the involvement of the immune system. His work concentrated on nutritional immunity and its impact on pathogen proliferation. He later pursued a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Prof. Kevin Foster, exploring the fundamental ecological principles that govern colonization resistance in the intestinal microbiome against pathogens such as Salmonella and Klebsiella.

Since joining the CNRS in 2021, Dr. Cunrath has developed an innovative research program centered on the impact of secondary metabolites—particularly those involved in metal homeostasis—on colonization resistance. His research combines two complementary models: the gut microbiome, challenged with pathogens such as Salmonella, Yersinia, and Klebsiella, and the amphibian skin microbiome facing the pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis.