Samuel Philip Nobs

Samuel P. Nobs performed his undergraduate studies in Biomedical Science at Victoria University of Wellington (NZ) between 2007 and 2010. After research stays in Immunology at the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research (NZ) and Australian National University (AU), he completed his Master degree in Immunology and Microbiology as an Excellence and Opportunity Scholar at ETH Zurich (CH) in 2012 in the group of Prof. Manfred Kopf where he worked on the development and function of alveolar macrophages. Continuing in the same laboratory for his doctorate, he discovered a critical role for PI3Kg in mediating lung dendritic cell development. Furthermore, he identified distinct and essential roles for PPARg and GM-CSF in driving allergic lung inflammation and chronic airway remodeling. He received his Ph.D. from ETH Zurich in 2017 where he was awarded the ETH Silver Medal for his thesis as well as the doctoral thesis prize in Allergology from the European Federation of Immunological Societies. For his postdoctoral training, Nobs joined the Department of Systems Immunology at the Weizmann Institute of Science (IL) as an EMBO and SNSF Postdoctoral Fellow from 2017-2024. In his postdoctoral work in the group of Eran Elinav, Samuel P. Nobs worked on how metabolism and the microbiome control respiratory diseases. In this work, he uncovered a novel molecular mechanism about why diabetes is associated with elevated susceptibility to respiratory infection. He was awarded the Sidney and Joan Pestka Postgraduate Award from the International Cytokine and Interferon Society as well as the Weizmann Institute of Science Prize for Outstanding Postdoctoral Achievements for his discoveries. In 2024, he was awarded an SNSF Starting Grant, starting his independent scientific career at the Department of Physiology at the University of Zurich (CH) as an Assistant Professor. In the summer of 2025, Samuel P. Nobs joined the IRB as a group leader and Assistant Professor at USI to lead the new Immune Microbiome Interactions laboratory.

The microbiota plays a critical role for human health and disease. However, how the host and microbiota interact and how this contributes to development of disease is still largely unknown. Overall, the aim of our group is to identify and study the specific molecular mechanisms by which microbes influence the host, including how commensal bacteria modulate host immunity and how this, in turn, impacts disease. We are particularly interested in immune responses in the lung including the response to respiratory pathogens such as influenza virus as well as chronic diseases such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and diabetes. Specifically, it is our goal to characterize the role of both the gut and lung-resident microbiota and their products in controlling the host immune system and how this contributes to airway inflammation in different disease settings. This includes factors that directly impact the microbiota such as nutrition and other environmental influences. To achieve our aims, we employ state of the art OMICS methods to describe the complexity of the microbiota and its products, and use advanced in vivo gnotobiotic mouse models as well as in vitro translational organoid systems to establish the mechanistic and functional role of specific microbes in regulating the human immune system.