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From patterns to processes: towards a mechanistic understanding of the human microbiome [EXTRAORDINARY IRB Research Nodes Seminar]

21 Nov 22

Speaker: Stefany Moreno-Gámez

Postdoc Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Broad Institute, USA

 
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Presentation


 

Host: Toni Gabaldón

Node: Computational Biology  

Date: Monday 21 November 2022, 16.00h

Place: Serratosa Room

 

IMPORTANT: For attendees outside the PCB community you must register at least 24h before the seminar.

 

Abstract

Most of our knowledge about the human microbiome comes from high-throughput metagenomic studies which have yielded large catalogues of bacterial species and genes that are correlated with health and disease. While useful, these catalogues offer limited insights on how bacteria interact with one another and respond to their environments, which is essential to understand the forces that shape community assembly and evolution in the human host. In this talk, I will present our work on resource utilization strategies in the gut microbiome and show how characterizing the physiology and ecological interactions of individual microbes can help us understand the evolution of strategies for fiber degradation. In particular, I will focus on the question of why strategies for private and public utilization of fibers coexist in the gut and will discuss the implications of this functional perspective for the development of fibers as prebiotics.

 

Registration