Rebecca attended Medical School at the University Medical Center of the Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz in Germany. She completed her Medical Doctoral Thesis through a joint project with the pediatric immunology and infectiology department at Mainz and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, focusing on the gut microbiome in children with inflammatory bowel disease.

Anke Hemmerling, MD PhD MPH, is an Associate Adjunct Professor in the UCSF Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, and the Director of the Interdisciplinary MPH Program in the UC Berkeley School of Public Health.

She received her medical and public health training at the Humboldt University in Berlin (Germany) and at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB). During her clinical training, she repeatedly worked in health projects and hospitals in Latin America.

I am a mechanical engineer and bioengineer. My laboratory studies interactions between microbes, musculoskeletal tissues and materials. We are currently studying the effects of the gut microbiome on the musculoskeletal system and the success of orthopaedic surgery. Additionally we are studying mechanobiology of bacteria and advancing the new field of Engineered Living Materials.

Mechanical loads manifest into strains within tissues and interfaces of an organ. Strains within tissues are transduced by the cells to produce the needed extracellular matrix proteins to meet functional demands. This is the general philosophy of research in my laboratory which is within the Division of Biomaterials and Bioengineering. Our lab has a strong focus on mechanics, materials, and investigating adaptation of tissues/interfaces through spatiotemporal mapping of “mechano-responsiveness”.