The laboratory’s mission is to understand the role of the human microbiota in health and disease, with a particular accent toward dissemination, microbiome mofification, and inflammation and cancer
We are living in different biomes such as our home, place of work, and the outdoor sites we enjoy. We are carrying an assemblage of bacteria, that does interact with other microbiomes along our daily lives and is influenced by environmental factors both inward and outward. Our result driven science is based on research hypotheses surrounding the following themes:
All this work would not be feasible without a team of collaborators, cohorts and consortia. We would like to provide the links to the cohorts and consortia the laboratory has been involved in:
- Composition: Health and disease status affect the microbial composition. The ecological rules still have to be defined.
- Dissemination: For decades the same type of bacteria have been found at multiple location in the body. The development of new tools allows a more precise typing to understand their origin.
- Environmental effect: At the microbiome scale an environmental effect goes beyond the change of weather and may include the change of nutrient availability, the modification of immune pressure and a local change of temperature.
All this work would not be feasible without a team of collaborators, cohorts and consortia. We would like to provide the links to the cohorts and consortia the laboratory has been involved in:
- The Human Microbiome Project (HMP). This project recruited few hundred individuals lacking pro-inflammatory condition or sign. The goal was to test hypotheses at 18 body sites and across body sites. http://commonfund.nih.gov/hmp/index
- The Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS). This study began in 1986 by enrolling over 50,000 volunteers. The purpose is to evaluate a series of hypotheses relating nutritional factors to the incidence of serious illnesses, such as cancer, heart disease, and other vascular diseases. http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hpfs/
- The European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC). With more than half a million (521,000) participants recruited across 10 European countries and followed for almost 15 years, this is one of the largest cohort studies in the world. The study was designed to investigate the relationships between diet, nutritional status, lifestyle and environmental factors, and the incidence of cancer and other chronic diseases. http://epic.iarc.fr/
Current Projects
- Cancer and microbiome
- Microbiome and diet
- Preterm Birth
- Method Development