Shotgun metagenomics holds the promise to uncover the diversity of the human microbiome, but culture-independent strain-level investigations of the microbiome are still in their infancy. I will present our work on profiling strains from metagenomes with a genomic resolution approaching the one currently attainable by analysis of genomes sequenced from pure culture, and I will present the strain-level population genomics analyses we performed on under-characterized intestinal microbes by integrating thousands of available metagenomic samples.

Speaker Background: Dr Nicola Segata is an assistant professor and a computational biologist leading the ERC-funded Laboratory of Computational Metagenomics at University of Trento. The lab employs experimental meta’omic tools and novel computational approaches to study the diversity of the microbiome and its role in human dysbiosis and infection. Before starting his independent lab in 2012, Dr. Segata completed a postdoctoral experience in Curtis Huttenhower Lab at Harvard where he was in involved in the NIH Human Microbiome Project.

Further information: http://segatalab.cibio.unitn.it