Welcome Nichole Klatt, PhD

The University of Minnesota Medical School and Department of Surgery are pleased to welcome Nichole (“Nikki”) Klatt, PhD, as professor and director of the newly created Surgical Outcomes and Precision Medicine Research Division. Dr. Klatt will be leading a highly collaborative, cutting-edge, multi-disciplinary, translational research program across departments, teaming basic research with clinical medicine to understand health outcomes and determine novel approaches to intervene and improve health.

Dr. Klatt joins us from the University of Miami, where she was most recently an associate professor and vice-chair of research in the department of pediatrics, held the Adrienne Arsht Endowed Chair in Pediatric Clinical Research and was a member of the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Dr. Klatt’s laboratory performs innovative translational research on the mechanisms by which the microbiome impacts human health and potential interventions to improve health through the microbiome. Their research includes health outcomes and personalized medicine utilizing basic research to clinical medicine to use a systems biology approach to better understand and intervene in human health. Dr. Klatt’s recent publication, demonstrating a highly novel mechanism by which the microbiome can alter the efficacy of anti-HIV drugs via metabolism by dysbiotic bacteria (Klatt et al., Science 2017), is one example of this innovative translational research approach.

Dr. Klatt received her PhD in Immunology and Molecular Pathogenesis from Emory University in 2009 and studied as a visiting PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania (2006-2009). She was a postdoctoral fellow at the N.I.H., NIAID, in the Laboratory of Molecular Medicine (2009-2012). In 2012, she began her laboratory at the University of Washington Department of Pharmaceutics as an assistant professor. She was later promoted to associate professor and director of the Mucosal Immunology Core and Microbiome Core of the Washington National Primate Research Center.

Dr. Klatt and her team’s expertise in the microbiome, pharmacomicrobiomics, microbiology, mucosal biology, immunology, inflammation, model studies and human disease provides the nexus for the development of cross-discipline collaborations at the Medical School. Dr. Klatt’s expertise in these areas also strengthens our commitment to the development of new clinical studies to advance innovative treatments for our patients.

As a native of Chaska, Minnesota, and a graduate of the University of Minnesota Duluth, we expect her transition from sunny Miami to our brisk winter in Minnesota to be an easy one. Please join us in welcoming Dr. Klatt!