Research and counseling in the area of microbial insecticides, especially the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that is the most widely used bacteria in the fight of insects in e.g. greenhouses in Denmark. The bacterium is closely related to the food poisoning bacteria Bacillus cereus that can cause diarrhea after ingestion of contaminated food. It is therefore important to secure that the Bt strains used does not pose risk for humans.

Another research area, I am involved in, is the ecology of the human gut, which comprises ten times more bacterial cells than there are human cells in the whole body. A healthy gut microbiota is important for our health; however it is still unclear what a healthy gut microbiota is for the single individual. One of the first things to get closer to an explanation is to study which and how many bacteria are present in the gut, and how different factors can affect this composition. Both bacteria and human gut cells produce different substances than can be either beneficial or harmful to human health. Furthermore are the bacteria in the gut capable of exchanging genes e.g. genes encoding for antibiotic resistance.