Title: Microbial Ecology at the Frontier of Host Ecology, Evolution and Health

Presenter: WANG Jun

University: Rega Insitute, KU Leuven / VIB Center for the Biology of Disease

Time: 10:00-11:00, December 19, 2014

Venue: Room A102, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Abstract: Recent years have seen the tremendous new findings in microbiome (microbiota, microbial communities) research in humans and other animals. Bacteria colonies almost all surfaces of animal body and cavities, carrying out important functions in metabolism and immunities; dysbiosis (disruption of homeostatic states) however, can lead to inflammation, infection and also can contribute to diseases. During my PhD and Post-doc research, I focused on 1) ecological and evolutionary factors shaping gut microbiome in wild mouse, where I demonstrate biogeography, diet and host genetics determines the diversity of gut microbiome, and host-microbiome co-evolutions; 2) nurture and nature of gut microbiome in humans, where we investigate relative role of  environmental influences versus human genome via cohort study and GWAS analysis; and 3) microbiome as important intermediate in disease models, in which we showed that microbiome interacts with host genome and the cross-talk mediates the development and manifestation of the diseases. Several directions of study shows the great potential and important of microbiome, and the ever-increasing demand for incorporating microbiome to every aspects of host ecology, evolution and health.