Lars Bode PhD

Dr. Lars Bode is a Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Neonatology and the Division of Gastroenterology and Nutrition in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Dr. Bode received his PhD in Nutrition from the Justus-Liebig University in Giessen, Germany. He completed a predoctoral fellowship in immunology at the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital and the Department of Infection and Immunity at the Institute of Child Health, University College London, UK, and a postdoctoral fellowship in glycobiology at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in La Jolla, CA.

Dr. Bode and his team are dedicated to research on breastfeeding and human milk in general and Human Milk Oligosaccharides (HMOs) in particular. Their main objectives are to elucidate (i) how milk components are synthesized in the mother’s mammary gland, (ii) how milk composition is affected by external factors such as nutrition, pathogens, or medications, (iii) how milk components affect immediate as well as long-term health and development of infants and mothers, and (iv) how they can serve as natural templates for the development of preventatives, therapeutics, and diagnostics for people of all ages.