Dietmar Kueltz recently joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor of Physiological Genomics with specialization in responses of animal cells to environmental stress. Physiological genomics is an area of biology that emphasizes  the functional characterization of gene products and genetic processes.

Dietmar moved here from the Whitney Marine Laboratory at the University of Florida, where he had been an assistant professor of physiology and functional genomics since 1998. Born in Storkow, Germany, Dietmar completed his university education at the University of Rostock in that country before coming to Oregon State University in 1993 for postdoctoral research in adaptive energy and protein metabolism of marine fishes and invertebrates. Two years later he moved to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, as a Fogarty Visiting Fellow in the Kidney and Electrolyte Metabolism Laboratory, and then in 1998 to the Whitney Marine Laboratory.

Much of Dietmar's work has focused on characterizing the factors involved in the stress response of epithelial cells in marine animals and of mammalian kidney cells. He is particularly interested in the cell's response to osmotic stress. In addition, he has worked on cellular responses to ultraviolet radiation, heavy metals and heat stress.

At UC Davis, Dietmar is looking forward to continuing his research on cellular osmoregulation in animal cells. He will also continue to work on cellular responses to ultraviolet radiation, heat and other environmental stresses. His research projects are currently supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory. He has also been a recipient of research grants from the German Science Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

He will begin his teaching in a departmental molecular biology course.

Dietmar's wife, Simone, has also joined UC Davis as an international student advisor; their son Anton, 12, attends Holmes Junior High School in Davis.