microorganisms – NIH Director's Blog (original) (raw)
Creative Minds: The Human Gut Microbiome’s Top 100 Hits
Posted on May 18th, 2017 by Dr. Francis Collins
Michael Fishbach
Microbes that live in dirt often engage in their own deadly turf wars, producing a toxic mix of chemical compounds (also called “small molecules”) that can be a source of new antibiotics. When he started out in science more than a decade ago, Michael Fischbach studied these soil-dwelling microbes to look for genes involved in making these compounds.
Eventually, Fischbach, who is now at the University of California, San Francisco, came to a career-altering realization: maybe he didn’t need to dig in dirt! He hypothesized an even better way to improve human health might be found in the genes of the trillions of microorganisms that dwell in and on our bodies, known collectively as the human microbiome.
Tags: 2016 NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, analytical chemistry, antibiotics, bacteria, biochemistry, biofilm, digestion, gastrointestinal disease, gastrointestinal tract, genetic engineering, genetics, GI tract, gut, gut bacteria, gut microbiome, heart disease, microbes, microbiome, microbiota, microorganisms, obesity, probiotics, small molecules, synthetic gut community