Manuel Kleiner

Manuel Kleiner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at North Carolina State University. His research focuses on metabolic and physiological interactions in host-microbe systems, microbial ecology, and the application of metagenomics and high-resolution mass spectrometry to study complex microbiota-host relationships.

• Research Highlights: Development of metaproteomic techniques to quantify protein expression, analyze community structure via biomass contributions, and track isotope ratios to understand nutrient flow between hosts and microbiota.
• Creator of the "transductomics" approach to detect horizontal gene transfer via viral transduction in intestinal systems.
• Collaborates with researchers such as Theriot, Sartor, Sheikh, Ziegler, and Gonzalez.

Recent Trends: His 2025 publications emphasize gut microbiome dynamics, maize root-microbe interactions, transplantation biology, and advancements in metaproteomic methodologies. Key themes include dietary impacts on microbiota, stable isotope probing, and synthetic microbial communities for plant and human health.

Laboratory Tools: The Kleiner Lab utilizes quantitative metagenomics, high-resolution mass spectrometry, and computational modeling to dissect functional interactions in symbiotic systems across diverse environments, from marine organisms to agricultural crops.