Seminars – Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection

Current schedule here. This trainee-run seminar series focused on new research in CMDI. It’s Fridays at 3pm and includes coffee and cookies. All seminars are in Klaus 1447 for Fall 2024.

Upcoming seminar:

Abstract:

The human body contains countless bacteria which play an important role in health and disease. These bacteria interact with each other and their host using a diverse set of secondary metabolites. The focus of the Garg lab is using untargeted metabolomics to characterize these secondary metabolites and understand the role of bacteria-bacteria and bacteria-host interactions in shaping the host metabolome during health and disease. The lung, once thought to be mostly sterile, contains many strains of bacteria, fungi, and viruses that play a role during lung disease. Everyone knows about probiotics for your gut, and preliminary evidence has shown that airway probiotics can also have positive effects on the host by protecting against airway infections. We hope to shed light on the effects of protective and pathogenic bacteria on the lung metabolome to better understand the potential for airway probiotics to improve our health. Another environment shaped by bacterial-host interactions are corals. They rely on algal endosymbionts for over 90% of their nutritional requirements meaning that maintaining their microbiome is essential for survival. Corals are facing increasing pressure due to rising temperatures, ocean acidification, and diseases such as Stony coral tissue loss disease. We use metabolomics to map the coral metabolome to better understand how different species of coral respond to stress and to uncover the diverse roles of coral symbiotic bacteria.