Dr. Thomas Sicheritz-Ponten fil.dr, is a professor in Metagenomics at the Technical University of Denmark where he is leading the Metagenomics group at the Center for Biological Sequence Analysis and the Metagenomics group at the Metagenomic Systems Biology section at the newly founded Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability. He has a background in Bioinformatics and Molecular Evolution from Uppsala University, Sweden and his primary interests are microbial genome analysis, metagenomics, antique systems biology, marine biotechnology, machine learning approaches and the detection and study of lateral gene transfers. A major part of his research is metatranscriptomics of the human microbiome - correlating changes in the human microbiome with changes in human health, where he is currently coordinating DTUs involvement in the EU project Metagenomics of the human intestinal tract (MetaHIT).