The gut microbiota (the collection of bact eria\, fungi\, and other microbes that live in the human gut) has been inc reasingly recognized as crucially important to our health. There is eviden ce that over the last several decades\, components of the gut microbiota o f people in the industrialized world are going extinct\, as a result of li festyle changes that are not friendly to our microbes. Alarmingly\, these extinction events seem to correlate with increasing incidence rates of chr onic diseases such as allergy\, asthma\, diabetes\, and cancer. We can't g o back in time to look at our microbes before the industrial age\, but we can study the gut microbiomes of hunter-gatherer groups who live in isolat ed pockets around the globe and who have had only limited exposure to the developed world. In this talk\, Emma Allen-Vercoe will describe the work h er lab is doing to understand the gut microbiomes of the Irokae-teri\, a g roup of Yanomami people who live deep in the Venezuelan Amazon. Have we fo und our missing microbes?
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About our Speaker
Emma obtained her BSc (Hons) in Biochemistry from the University of
London\, and her PhD in Molecular Microbiology through an industrial partn
ership with Public Health England. Emma started her faculty career at the
University of Calgary in 2005\, with a Fellow-to-Faculty transition award
through CAG/AstraZeneca and CIHR\, to study the normal microbes of the hum
an gut. In particular\, she was among the few that focused on trying to cu
lture these &lsquo\;unculturable&rsquo\; microbes in order to better under
stand their biology. To do this\, she developed a model gut system to emul
ate the conditions of the human gut and allow communities of microbes to g
row together\, as they do naturally. Emma moved her lab to the University
of Guelph in late 2007 and has been a recipient of several Canadian Founda
tion for Innovation Awards that have allowed her to develop her specialist
anaerobic fermentation laboratory further. This has been recently boosted
by the award of a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Human Gut Microbiome Fu
nction and Host Interactions. In 2013\, Emma co-founded NuBiyota\, a resea
rch spin-off company that aims to create therapeutic ecosystems as biologi
c drugs\, on a commercial scale. The research enterprise for this company
is also based in Guelph.
Cambridge Third Age Learnin
g (CTAL) is a movement that encourages learning and discovery exp
eriences for those in the &ldquo\;third age&rdquo\;&mdash\;the stage in on
e&rsquo\;s life beyond full-time employment. By cultivating opportunities
for discussion and engaging the expertise of local university professors a
nd community professionals\, CTAL supports those who have an intellectual
curiosity and an interest in life-long learning.