Balling began his studies in nutritional sciences in 1974 at the University of Bonn. In 1984, he received his doctorate from RWTH Aachen University. From 1984 to 1986, Rudi Balling conducted research on imprinting mechanisms at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto in one of the world's leading laboratories in the field of developmental biology. He then moved to the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen. There he discovered crucial mechanisms in the field of morphogenesis. In 1991, Balling habilitated and became head of a research group at the Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology in Freiburg im Breisgau. From 1993 to 2000, he was director of the Institute of Mammalian Genetics at the GSF Research Center for Environment and Health (now Helmholtz Zentrum München). In 1994, he accepted an adjunct professorship at RWTH Aachen, followed by an appointment to the Chair of Developmental Genetics at TU Munich in 1998. From 2001 to 2009, he was scientific director of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI).
Until his retirement on December 31, 2021, Balling led the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) as founding director, where he conducted research on neurodegenerative diseases and systems biology processes since 2009. He is a corresponding member of the Braunschweig Scientific Society and a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences.
The Faculty of Medicine is very pleased to welcome Prof. Balling in Bonn and wishes him much pleasure and success in his scientific work.