Graduate Student - Ph.D.

Molecular Microbiology

Pathology and Immunology

Washington University in St. Louis (Saint Louis, MO)

Jeffrey I Gordon

My thesis work is focused on using defined, synthetic communities of human gut microbes in gnotobiotic mice to better understand the mechanistic underpinnings of natural gut communities in humans.

My current research seeks to address three related aims: (i) To develop a synthetic human gut microbiota and the tools and techniques required to monitor its structure and function over time in gnotobiotic mice; (ii) To evaluate the effects of different environmental and host factors (particularly diet and host adiposity) on the assembly, operation and robustness of a synthetic human gut microbiota; and (iii) To determine how a synthetic human microbiota responds to intentional restructuring of community membership. The availability of this system/tools as well as the detailed interrogation of the structural and functional implications of diet, adiposity and community membership it allows should shed new light on the mechanistic underpinnings of natural systems whose importance in human health is now widely recognized.