The human body is inhabited by trillions of bacteria, viruses and eukaryotic microorganisms, collectively termed the microbiome. This microbial community plays a critical role in health and disease.
To understand the mechanisms involved, we ask how microbes interact with…
Environmental stimuli
The microbiome serves as a nexus between the host and environmental exposures, including nutrients, drugs, and other xenobiotics. Metabolism of these substrates by the microbiome can result in molecules that are beneficial or detrimental for the host. At the same time, environmental stimuli can directly affect on the microbial community, which may lead to a disease-promoting configuration, as we have previously demonstrated with non-caloric sweeteners. In the Suez lab, we take a metabolomic and proteomic approach to understand the outcome of interactions between microbes and environmental stimuli.
Other microbes
Microbes in the gut can interact with other members of the community to maintain balance, and diseases can occur when it is disrupted. They can also interact with exogenous microbes, which can be pathogenic or of potential therapeutic value. The resident microbes can resist colonization with exogenous ones, potentially compromising efficacy of therapeutics such as probiotics and fecal microbiome transplantation. In parallel, therapeutic bacteria may have unexpected effects on the microbiome. We take a microbial ecology approach to understand the forces that shape the microbial community and the mechanisms through which bacteria, viruses, and fungi interact within the host.
Their host
Interactions among microbes and between the microbiome and environmental stimuli do not occur in a void, and we are interested in those interactions that help maintain our health or promote disease. We are currently looking at how these tripartite host-microbiome-environment interactions mediate pathogenesis of metabolic syndrome and inflammatory bowel diseases. To that end, we couple multiomics analysis of the microbiome and the host with in vivo models and clinical trials.