Scientists Decode Diet From Stool DNA – No Questions Asked
ISB’s Gibbons Lab developed a breakthrough method that analyzes food-derived DNA in fecal metagenomes, allowing for data-driven diet tracking without the need for burdensome questionnaires.
Lab Overview
Gibbons Lab
The Gibbons Lab, led by Dr. Sean Gibbons, develops experimental and computational approaches to dissect and engineer the functional outputs of the human gut microbiome to advance personalized medicine.
Health Research
Dr. Sean Gibbons with members of his lab. Photo credit: Scott Eklund / Red Box Pictures.
Topic: Microbiome Health
Understanding Our Unique Response to Foods
Our gut microbiome – the trillions of microbes in our digestive system – differs substantially even between people, even identical twins, and responds in unique ways to dietary intake. To design microbiome-informed personalized diets to optimize our health, the Gibbons Lab, with NIH funding, is studying how the microbiome influences our individual responses to diet.
A colorful bowl of food. Photo credit: Food Photographer, Unsplash, recolored by ISB.
Topic: Microbiome Health
My Digital Gut – A Platform for Personalized Nutrition
The Gibbons Lab is developing an online dashboard called My Digital Gut to predict the impact of personalized dietary changes before people make them. The program assesses someone’s current diet (no food diary needed) and guides individuals towards personally optimal nutrition. Supported by the ISB Foundation Board, My Digital Gut is in the testing phase, seeking to eventually inform personalized clinical care.
3D rendering of bacteria. Image credit: AdobeStock, recolored by ISB.
Topic: Maternal and Infant Health
Improving Health of Infants Born to Mothers with HIV
Infants born to mothers with HIV, but not infected, do not respond well to rotavirus (annually kills more than 200,000 children) vaccines, and their guts are depleted in the critical newborn microbe Bifidobacterium infantis. The Gibbons Lab, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, and South African researchers, where these births are frequent, are administering a B. infantis probiotic to see if it improves rotavirus vaccine efficacy.
Gibbons Lab members working at ISB. Photo credit: Scott Eklund / Red Box Pictures.
How You Can Help
Help enable a new class of life-changing precision interventions for improving your gut health.
ISB Associate Professor Dr. Sean Gibbons is creating an online dashboard called My Digital Gut that will give anyone the ability to predict the impact of nutritional changes before making them. By supporting ISB, you can help us leverage our growing knowledge of the gut microbiome to make nutrition and healthcare personalized, predictive and preventive.
Latest Gibbons Lab News
ISB Named Winner of 2024-2025 Amazon Web Services IMAGINE Grant for Nonprofits
ISB has been selected as a winner of the 2024 Amazon Web Services (AWS) IMAGINE Grant. The grant will support ISB’s continued development of My Digital Gut, an online decision-support platform that will help make microbiome-informed nutrition and healthcare personalized, predictive, and preventive.
A Gut Feeling: Microbes and Their Impacts on Our Minds
There has been an explosion of research into the two-way communication between the gut microbiota and the brain. This year, ISB hosted a virtual microbiome series dedicated to exploring the gut-brain axis.
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Contact Dr. Sean Gibbons
Associate Professor
ISB