On October 15 and 16, 2020, ISB hosted a virtual course and symposium on the microbiome and its future role in precision medicine.
When a new scientific discipline is born, there is an initial natural history phase, where explorers map out the contours of the unknown. For the past couple of decades we have characterized the form and function of microbial ecosystems in and on the human body. Now, with this wealth of information collected on the human microbiome serving as a foundation, we have entered into a new phase of testing targeted, mechanistic hypotheses for how our microbiota contribute to the etiologies of diseases. ISB hosted a series of events in October of 2020 that highlight recent in silico, in vitro, and in vivo advances towards engineering the gut microbiome to resolve complex diseases.
ISB hosted a one-day course on October 15, 2020, followed by a symposium on October 16, 2020. Both events were virtual and free. The intended audience for these events are graduate students, postdocs, principal investigators, industry scientists, educators, and clinicians from across the globe.
On October 15, 2020 at 9:15 a.m., we provided a one-day, intensive course designed to enable novice microbiome researchers to get up-to-speed with amplicon sequencing data processing and analyses and we will introduce a powerful metagenome-scale metabolic modeling approach recently developed at ISB.
On October 16, 2020 at 9 a.m., we hosted a symposium, featuring six researchers working in different parts of the world to build computational and experimental tools for manipulating the gut microbiome to track and treat disease.
Course participants will need to register below in order to receive a Zoom link and an invitation to the course's Slack account. Lectures will be given in Zoom and real-time tutorials will be monitored by teaching assistants via Slack. Thus, participants will need to install both Zoom and Slack prior to the start of the course. Presentations and course materials can be accessed on the course's GitHub repository. Course presentations can be viewed on a web browser (smartphone compatible). Course tutorials will be run in ipython notebooks within Google Colab, which provides all participants with free computational resources, but will also require everyone to sign up for a Google account (if they do not already have one). The first half of the course will be run using Quantitative Insights Into Microbial Ecology 2 (QIIME2). The second half of the course will involve using a new metabolic modeling tool called MICOM to infer gut microbial community function. Participants are encouraged to develop a basic familiarity with Zoom, Slack, and ipython notebooks prior to the course.
| Time | Talk | Info | Additional Materials |
|---|---|---|---|
| 09:15 - 09:30 | Introductory remarks - Sean Gibbons | Webinar via Zoom | |
| 09:30 - 11:00 | Analyzing amplicon sequencing data with Qiime 2 - Christian Diener | Webinar via Zoom | Slides Open Colab |
| 11:00 - 11:45 | Apply what you’ve learned | Live chat and Q&A via Slack | |
| 11:45 - 12:00 | Look at results and discuss | Webinar via Zoom | |
| 12:30 - 14:00 | Modeling microbiota-wide metabolism with MICOM - Christian Diener | Webinar via Zoom | Slides Open Colab |
| 14:00 - 14:30 | Apply what you’ve learned | Live chat and Q&A via Slack | |
| 15:00 - 16:00 | Presentation by Tom Wilmanski and Noa Rappaport | Webinar via Zoom | |
| 16:00 - 16:30 | Closing remarks - Nathan Price | Webinar via Zoom |
| Time | Talk/Session | Info |
|---|---|---|
| 09:00 – 09:15 | Welcoming remarks by Sean Gibbons | Webinar via Zoom |
| 09:15 – 11:00 | Session One: Mechanistic Models | |
| 09:15 – 09:45 | Jason Papin, PhD, Talk title: Metabolic mechanisms of interaction in microbial communities | Webinar via Zoom |
| 09:45 – 10:15 | Ines Thiele, PhD, Talk title: Large-scale modelling of the human microbiome accounts for strain-specific drug metabolism | Webinar via Zoom |
| 10:15 – 10:45 | Panel Discussion: Chaired by Priyanka Baloni | Webinar via Zoom |
| 11:00 – 12:30 | Session Two: in vitro Approaches | |
| 11:00 – 11:30 | Thomas Gurry, PhD, Talk title: Exploiting in vitro measurements of gut microbial fermentation capability towards disease prevention | Webinar via Zoom |
| 11:30 – 12:00 | Julie McDonald, PhD, Talk title: Using artificial gut models to study how the gut microbiota protects against intestinal infections | Webinar via Zoom |
| 12:00 – 12:30 | Panel Discussion: Chaired by Noa Rappaport | Webinar via Zoom |
| 12:45 – 14:15 | Session Three: in vivo Interventions | |
| 12:45 – 13:15 | Gautam Dantas, PhD, Talk title: Predicting and Combating Pathogenic and Abiotic Disruptions to Diverse Microbiomes | Webinar via Zoom |
| 13:15 – 13:45 | Johanna Lampe, PhD, Talk title: Diet-Gut Microbiome Interactions: Controlled Feeding Studies and Metabolic Phenotypes | Webinar via Zoom |
| 13:45 – 14:15 | Panel Discussion: Chaired by Tomasz Wilmanski | Webinar via Zoom |
| 14:15 – 14:30 | Closing remarks by Nathan Price | Webinar via Zoom |
