human microbiome

Joe Petrosino of Baylor College of Medicine discusses using next generation sequencing technologies to study human microbial communities associated with health and disease on June 4, 2010 at the "Sequencing, Finishing, Analysis in the Future" meeting in Santa Fe, NM.

The video describes my invention of Engineered cells which can act as a live vaccine. These cells are programmed to intelligently detect a particular gut pathogen and then specifically and completely kill it without affecting the normal gut microbial flora. This automated approach thus prevents from horrible side effects of current antibiotics and growing resistance against them.

The human microbiome is a complex system of many microbial communities inhabiting a diversity of environmental niches throughout the human body. With at least an order of magnitude more cells and even greater diversity of genetic potential these microbial communities continually interact with the human host cells in complex but controlled manner that lead to normal human health. Our knowledge of the structure and function of these communities and the interactions with the human host is...