Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Many diseases and disorders have been attributed to the microbes that live on or in the human body (the human microbiome). In many cases, we know that the microbiome plays a role in these diseases/disorders, but we don't know the specific members of these communities that are responsible, making it difficult to treat cases clinically. In this Fellowship, I propose incorporating ecology and mathematical techniques from network theory to study the interactions between elements of these communities. Building upon previous work in my PhD and Postdoctoral research, I will find species-species and gene-gene interactions within these communities. My previous research has found that species-species interactions can help identify species that co-operate to encourage each others growth and also species that inhibit each others growth. Further, I have shown that genes that co-occur with each other across bacterial strains are more likely to be co-expressed, and to share functions with each other. These previous results suggest that studying these interactions in the human microbiome will help elucidate interactions in these communities that drive the mechanistic differences between health and disease.