There has been an explosion of research into the two-way communication between the gut microbiota and the brain, which has helped us to understand complex behavioral and neurophysiological phenotypes in many animal species. This year, ISB hosted a virtual microbiome series dedicated to exploring the gut-brain axis.
Netflix’s “Hack Your Health: The Secrets of Your Gut” is a documentary that merged gut microbiome experts, four individuals – including a well-known hot dog eating champion – facing personal battles with gastrointestinal health, and a unique, effective visual method of “showing” the gut microbiome in action.
ISB researchers have developed a novel way to simulate personalized, microbiome-mediated responses to diet. They use a microbial community-scale metabolic modeling (MCMM) approach to predict individual-specific short-chain fatty acid production rates in response to different dietary, prebiotic, and probiotic inputs.
Dr. Sean Gibbons – an expert in microbial ecology and evolution, computational systems biology, the human gut microbiome and its impacts on health, and head of ISB’s Gibbons Lab – has been promoted to Associate Professor. “Sean’s achievements since joining ISB in 2018 as a Washington Research Foundation Distinguished Investigator have been spectacular,” ISB President Dr. Jim Heath said. “With his focus on the microbiome, he brought a whole new…
ISB Assistant Professor Dr. Sean Gibbons talked about the science behind statins in our most recent Research Roundtable virtual presentation. His talk was titled “Bugs vs. Drugs: How Our Unique Gut Microbiomes Shape Our Personalized Responses to Statins.”
The strongest associations with weight loss success or failure – independent of BMI – are found in the genetic capacity of the gut microbiome. These new findings open the door to diagnostic tests that can identify people likely to lose weight with healthy lifestyle changes and those who might need more drastic interventions.
The gut microbiome is an integral component of the body, but its importance in the human aging process is unclear. ISB researchers and their collaborators have identified distinct signatures in the gut microbiome that are associated with either healthy or unhealthy aging trajectories, which in turn predict survival in a population of older individuals.
