Speaker
Jessica Metcalf, PhD
Speaker's Institution
BioFrontiers, Institute, CU Boulder
Date
20140902
Time
4:00 PM
Location
Anatomy/Zoology Building W118
Mixer Time
3:30 PM
Mixer Time
Anatomy/Zoology Building E112
Calendar (ICS) Event
Additional Information

The earth harbors almost 10 orders of magnitude more microbial cells than there are stars in the universe. The human body harbors up to ten times as many microbial cells as human cells. We live in a microbial world, and there is no escaping how microbes in our environment and in our bodies affect our lives every day. What are these microbes doing, and what can they tell us about ourselves? I will highlight recent research and bioinformatics tools from the Knight lab, such as visualizations of rapid microbial community change in C. Difficile patients as they are cured by fecal transplants. I will talk about my research on the ancient gut microbiome as well as on the postmortem microbiome. Can we use 1000-year-old fecal material (coprolites) to reconstruct a picture of our ancestral human gut microbiome before the extensive use of antibiotics? What happens to our microbes after death?  Can they be useful for forensic science?  Join me for a tour through recent microbiome research, and find out about the exciting information it is revealing.