Speaker: Prof. Jeroen Raes, Associate Professor and VIB Group Leader Department of Microbiology & Immunology University of Leuven, Belgium
will present a seminar entitled: Towards population-level microbiome monitoring: the Flemish Gut Flora Project

Host: Simon Carding

Abstract:
Alterations in the gut microbiota have been linked to various pathologies, ranging from inflammatory bowel disease and diabetes to cancer. Although large numbers of clinical studies aiming at microbiome-based disease markers are currently being performed, our basic knowledge about the normal variability of the human intestinal microbiota and the factors that determine this still remain limited. Here, I will present a large-scale study of the gut microbiome variation in a geographically confined region (Flanders, Belgium). A cohort of >5000 individuals from the normal population is sampled for microbiome analysis and extensive metadata covering demographic, health- and lifestyle-related parameters is collected. Based on this cohort, a large-scale cross-sectional study of microbiome variability in relation to health as well as parameters associated to microbiome composition is being performed. In this presentation, I will discuss our experiences in large-scale microbiome monitoring, show how the development of dedicated computational approaches can assist in microbiome analysis and interpretation, and first results coming out of this effort.

All staff from organisations on the Norwich Research Park are welcome to attend.