Rudi Balling

Rudi Balling (born 17 October 1953 in Daun, Rhineland-Palatinate) is a German geneticist. He is the founding director of the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine at the University of Luxembourg (2009-2021) In 2016 Balling received Luxembourg's Ordre de Mérite (Commandeur) from Prime Minister Xavier Bettel.

Balling was a Postdoctoral Fellow from 1985 - 1987 with Janet Rossant at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada.

From 1993 until 2000 he was Director of the Institute of Mammalian Genetics at the GSF-National Research Center for Environment and Health (GSF) in Munich, Germany (later renamed Helmholtz Zentrum München).

Under Balling's direction, the focus of the Institute of Mammalian Genetics at GSF shifted from its original radiation- and environment-related risk assessment to genetic-related risk assessment, examining relationships between genetic influences and the effects of drugs and toxic chemicals. In addition to expanding the center's work into pharmacogenomics, toxicogenomics, developmental genetics and human genetics, Balling worked with Martin Hrabě de Angelis to develop one of the world's largest mutagenesis screens for research into gene function. The Munich ENU Mouse Mutagenesis Screen was an important part of the German Human Genome Project (DGHP), providing an approach to comparative phenotyping. Balling was one of three scientists elected to the advisory board of Germany's Human Genome Project, serving from 1996 to 2000.

From 2001 to 2009 Balling was Scientific Director of the Gesellschaft für Biotechnologische Forschung mbh (GBF, German Research Centre for Biotechnology), in Braunschweig, Germany. Under his leadership the center shifted its focus to infection research. On 18 July 2006 the GBF was renamed the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI).

In September 2009 Rudi Balling became the founding Director of the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) at the University of Luxembourg. The Center focused on "understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the development and progression of neurodegenerative diseases". Balling will be succeeded as Director in 2022 by Michael Heneka. Since January 2022 Balling is Senior Professor at the University of Bonn, Institute of Molecular Psychiatry.

About 176 of his publications are listed in the Science Citation Index. These have been cited more than 24000 times. Rudi Balling's Hirsch-Index is 81.

Awards Ordre de Mérite (Commandeur), Luxembourg, presented by Prime Minister Xavier Bettel (2016) Honorary Member der Association of American Anatomists (1999) Friedrich Wilhelm Preis der RWTH Aachen (1992) DFG-Scholarship, Mount Sinai Research Institute, Toronto, Canada (1984–1986) DAAD-Postgraduate Scholarship, NIEHS (NIH), N.C., United States (1981–1982) Fulbright Scholarship and Exchange-Scholarship of the University of Bonn and Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, United States (1978–1979)

Membership of scientific societies First President of the (Association for biology, bio-sciences and biomedicine in Germany, VBIO, 2007) First President of the Verband deutscher Biologen und biowissenschaftlicher Fachgesellschaften (Association of Bioscientific and Biomedical Societies, VBBM, 2003–2007) President of the (GfG, 2002–2004) President of the International Mammalian Genome Society (IMGS, 2001–2002)