MTS5 Brett Finlay - E.coli and the Human Gut
Brett Finlay is a professor in the Michael Smith Laboratories, and the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Microbiology and Immunology at the University of British Columbia.
\nHis research program focuses on E. coli, how it interacts with the cells of the human gut, and mouse models of E. coli-like infections.\xa0 Dr. Finlay will speak at the conference on Beneficial Microbes in San Diego this October, where he\u2019ll describe the results of some of his latest research, which examines how E. coli infections effect the microbes that live in our guts.
\nSadly, outbreaks of Escherichia coli infections in this country are common \u2013 just this summer a huge E. coli outbreak in Oklahoma sickened nearly 300 people and sent 67 of them to the hospital.\xa0 Clearly, in an outbreak, not everyone is effected equally.\xa0 When lots of people are exposed to E. coli, why do some of those people walk away unharmed while others wind up in the I.C.U.?\xa0 Dr. Finlay would say part of the answer, at least, probably lies in which microbes live in our intestine.
\nIn this podcast, I talked with Dr. Finlay about why we have so many different kinds of microbes in our guts, what happens to them when E. coli strikes, and why we have a long way to go before probiotics offer help \u2013 and not just hope.