Tuesday, January 18th, 2022 from 5 - 6pm, ET
How do microbes effect human body systems and our health? What’s an oral microbiome? What bacteria live in our gastrointestinal tract? What’s the difference between pathogenic and commensal organisms?
Watch the recording here! Additionally, see slides from Dr. Armstrong's presentation, Dr. Young's presentation (Part 1 & Part 2), and answers from the remaining questions.
Speaker Information
Abigail Armstrong, Ph.D. is a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. Martin Blaser at Rutgers University studying the role of the human microbiome on health. Abigail received a PhD in microbiology from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus performing her dissertation work on the role of the gut microbiome in people living with HIV in the lab of Dr. Catherine Lozupone and a BS in Biology from Calvin University performing her thesis work creating computation methods for microbial community mass spectrometry in the lab of Dr. John Wertz. Abigail’s work is focused utilizing existing and creating new computational tools to better understand the human microbiome with the larger system of the human body. She is passionate about communicating scientific findings and resources both between conventional bench scientists and computational scientists and to the general public.
Vincent Young, M.D., Ph.D. is a professor in the Department of Internal Medicine/Infectious Diseases Division and Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Research in the Young lab is directed at understanding the role of bacteria that inhabit the gastrointestinal tract and how they influence the health status of the host. To this end, we study the role of what would traditionally be considered “pathogenic bacteria” in gastrointestinal illness, with a particular emphasis on Clostridium difficile . In addition, we also examine how the population structure of the indigenous GI microbiota can influence the host-pathogen interaction and how changes in the community structure of the indigenous microbiota itself can lead to pathogenic states. This research is being conducted both with material from human subjects as well as animal models of disease.