Your body is more than just your cells. There is also a rich community of microbes living within us, and their contributions to our health and wellbeing are only beginning to be discovered.
Collectively, these microbes within us are called the microbiome, and work over the last decade has revealed how their diversity and composition can affect everything about your daily life, from your mood, your digestive health, and your heart’s wellness. Our researchers are identifying mechanisms that link microbial composition and subpopulations to health or disease, developing tools to accelerate data collection and improve management of the often large datasets associated with studies on the microbiome, and to re-engineer microbiota to perform diagnostic and therapeutic functions.
Leveraging a strong infrastructure for microbiome research at UChicago, our researchers are contributors and members of The Microbiome Center and the Duchossois Family Institute for Harnessing the Microbiome and Immunity for Human Health. The CIIC provides non-overlapping and complementary technical, research, and entrepreneurship infrastructure to accelerate discovery and translation in this rapidly advancing area of research.
