MTS43 - Rob Knight - The Microbes That Inhabit Us
In this episode, I speak to Rob Knight, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
\nKnight studies our inner ecology: the 100 trillion microbes that grow in and on our bodies. Knight explained how hundreds of species can coexist on the palm of your hand, how bacteria manipulate your immune system and maybe even your brain, and how obesity and other health problems may come down to the wrong balance of microbes.
\nLinks to studies mentioned in this episode:\nRuth Ley and Peter Turnbaugh's studies on obesity in Jeff Gordon's lab:\nObesity alters gut microbial ecology.\nMicrobial ecology: human gut microbes associated with obesity.\nAn obesity-associated gut microbiome with increased capacity for energy harvest.\nA core gut microbiome in obese and lean twins.\n\nJulie Segre's studies of the skin:\nA diversity profile of the human skin microbiota.\nTopographical and temporal diversity of the human skin microbiome.\n\nChris Lauber and Elizabeth Costello's studies of human-associated body habitats (in Noah Fierer's and Rob Knight's lab):\nThe influence of sex, handedness, and washing on the diversity of hand surface bacteria.\nBacterial community variation in human body habitats across space and time.\n\nJeremy Nicholson's studies of the metabolome:\nPharmacometabonomic identification of a significant host-microbiome metabolic interaction affecting human drug metabolism.\n\nCathy Lozupone's study of global microbial diversity (in Rob Knight's lab), and confirmation of the patterns in archaea by Jean-Christophe Auguet:\nGlobal patterns in bacterial diversity.\nGlobal ecological patterns in uncultured Archaea.\n\nRuth Ley and Cathy Lozupone's study integrating gut-associated and environmental bacteria:\nWorlds within worlds: evolution of the vertebrate gut microbiota.
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