Understanding Gut Microbiome Science with Jeffrey Gordon, MD

Episode Transcript
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Erin Spain, MS (00:10):
This is Breakthroughs, a podcast from Northwestern University
Feinberg School of Medicine.
I'm Erin Spain, host of the show.
Each Year, Northwestern Universityrecognizes a physician scientist
with the Mechthild Esser NemmersPrize in Medical Science, a $350,000

(00:31):
prize, which is awarded to abiomedical researcher whose body of
work exhibits outstanding achievementin medical science, as demonstrated
by works of lasting significance.
The 2024 recipient of this prize is Dr.
Jeffrey Gordon, who is often referredto as the father of microbiome research.

(00:52):
Dr.
Gordon is the Robert J.
Glaser Distinguished UniversityProfessor and Director of the Edison
Family Center for Genome Sciencesand System Biology at Washington
University School of Medicine in St.
Louis.
We are thrilled to have Dr.
Gordon on the show today to discusshis career and research, which has
transformed the understanding of humanhealth and how it's shaped by the gut

(01:16):
microbiome and has also led to newapproaches in treating malnutrition
and childhood undernutrition withmicrobiota targeted therapies.
Welcome to the show, Dr.
Gordon.

Jeffrey Gordon, MD: Thank you for having me. (01:27):
undefined
It's a pleasure to be here.

Well, it's so nice to have you here.
I'd like to start at the very beginningto help our listeners get to know you.
So if you don't mind telling me, whatfirst drew you into science and medicine?

Jeffrey Gordon, MD (01:41):
Well, I was in an environment as a kid
where my father was a doctor.
So there was a lot of discussionabout health and disease.
I liked science.
The things that I was reading as a youngchild often have to do with science.
Questions about the Earth.
I was fascinated by the idea oftraveling beyond the Earth to planets.

(02:03):
When I was young, the first satellitewas launched by the Russians, Sputnik 1.
And we all looked to the sky in awe.
The whole idea of something being ableto orbit the Earth, to think about our
Earth from a different perspective.
Soon thereafter, there was a programconceived and articulated by John F.

(02:23):
Kennedy, the President of the UnitedStates, to land a man on the moon.
And that thought wasabsolutely mesmerizing.
And to grow up at a time when man'sdesire to travel to new worlds,
to see things that have never beenseen before, that was captivating.
And again, it was also about somethingbeyond ourselves, that we would have

(02:46):
to unite as groups of people to solveproblems that were very complex.
At later stages of my life I hadto not travel tens of millions of
miles to see something together withothers that hadn't been seen before.
I had to travel a few meters insideof myself to look at the world inside
of our gut, populated by tens oftrillions of organisms whose identities

(03:10):
and functions were largely unknown.
I also read a book when I was youngcalled The Microbe Hunters, and it was
this glorious rendition of how heroicscientists would try to track down
the causes of infectious diseases.
But those are my early exposures.

(03:30):
I went to college at a liberalarts institution, where I had a
broad view about the human journey,for which I'm forever grateful.
That was Oberlin College.
And a lot of the discussionsthere had to do with what are the
foundations of human flourishing?
How do issues of socialjustice get resolved?
How are inequities addressed atmany different levels of society.

(03:53):
And there was a fundamentaltheme of trying to use your
voice to try to effect change.
Not for recognition, but asa part of a purposeful life.
Basically forged by a belief in the factthat people can and do make a difference.

I can definitely see through your life's work those
threads of the things you learnedin your liberal arts education
and the book you read as a child.
Wow, they really had an impacton you throughout your career.

The evolution a career follows many surprising directions.
I went to medical school at the Universityof Chicago, a place of very broad
disciplinary breadth and depth, and alsosuffused with a lot of deep curiosity.
People were very, very curious tryingto understand in medical school the

(04:42):
origins of human health the mechanismsunderlying disease, but I could see
how many different disciplines wererequired to come together to answer
those very complicated questions,and that had a big impact on me.
There's an African proverb thatI very much like in our lab.
It's a proverb that's written onthe walls of the Gates Foundation
when you go into their headquarters.

(05:02):
It's "If you want totravel fast, go alone.
If you want to travel far, go together."
And I think that that's a goodlesson in life in general.
And certainly a lesson in science.
That combined with the gift ofattention so that you could see the
significance of what's in front of youand around you, to do so collectively
gives you an opportunity to reallyhave a joyful ride of discovery.

Well, and you had this incredible lens as you were investigating
a field that there really wasn't a lotof information on when you first started.
Now, you mentioned a book that youread as a child about the microbiome,
but tell me about when you enteredthis field, what was known and how
you were able to contribute startingearly on as a young scientist?

First of all, although some of the tools in the area of
microbiome research are new, the questionsare as old as microbiology itself.
So it's a very dawn ofthe field of microbiology.
People were wondering what the functionsof microbes on and in our body were,
and for a long time the technologyto recover these organisms improved.

(06:09):
But a lot of these organismswere very difficult to culture.
And it was really the advent of moleculartools so that you could identify the
citizens in a microbial community.
Who are the actors on the stage usingDNA sequencing directed at sort of
these barcodes of life, genes thatwould allow us to classify the type
of organisms that were present.

(06:31):
And from that, which is a technologythat depended upon the evolution of
DNA sequencing, but also the ability toclassify the sequences into different
categories of life, that began arapid and very dynamic pursuit of
what do these communities look like?
What are their structures?

(06:52):
It didn't answer the questionnecessarily of how they function,
but that was an important inflectionpoint in the journey to try to
understand our microbial communities.
And we came into this fieldnot as microbiologists, but
as developmental biologists.
We were very interested, as a lab, inhow the lining cells of the gut know

(07:13):
where they are in space and time.
So let me explain that a little bit more.
Our intestines are lined with alayer of cells called an epithelium.
. There are many different cell typesthat comprise the epithelium, four
principal ones, and these cellsare constantly being renewed.
Now, how can these cells know wherethey are along the length of the gut and

(07:34):
what functions to express despite thecontinuous refreshment of the epithelium?
That was our question as developmentalbiologists and we studied that
question in mice that were geneticallyengineered in ways that allowed us
to probe this at a molecular level.
And over time, it became evidentthat a lot of the instructions about
space and time weren't hardwiredinto these cells, but rather were

(07:59):
responses to cues from the environment.
We made a decision to look above thecells in the lumen of the intestine at
the microbes that started colonizingthe intestine beginning at birth.
That was the origin of our journey.
How are these cells instructedabout where they are in space and
time, what functions to express?
Who are the actors in the microbialcommunities that are responsible

(08:22):
for this essential communication.
And how the heck do we figure this out?
Because there's so many differenttypes of microbes, the system is
so dynamic, the number of potentialinteractions between different types
of microbes is literally astronomical.
So we felt that we're gonna haveto try to simplify the system.
We went up 180 miles north.

(08:44):
When I say up, we're talking about St.
Louis , to the laboratory of thismagnificent microbiologist named
Abigail Salyers, who is able toculture some of the microbes in the
human gut, particularly microbesthat love to digest complex
carbohydrates called polysaccharides.
We asked for a few of thesecitizens that lived in the

(09:04):
human gut microbial community.
Then we thought we'd have to stage adrama where there would only be one
actor in the center of the stage,and the drama would be conducted in
a gut without any other microbes.
The gut of a mouse that had beenraised under completely sterile
condition, a so called germ free animal.

(09:26):
There were not many of these germfree animal facilities in the
world, and it turns out there was aSwedish postdoc in the lab who had
trained at the Karolinska Institute.
And there, a man known as ToreMidtvedt had overseen this
notobiotic facility for many years.
And we called Tori and asked, could webring this organism from the human gut,

(09:48):
install it into the intestines of theseanimals, and create a very simplified
model of the human gut microbiota.
And there began the applicationof these molecular tools.
What genes in the gut were influencedby the presence of this organism, what
do these genes do, what functions in thegut could be regulated by this organism?

(10:09):
And also how about the genesin the organism itself?
A number of very talented studentsin the lab were learning that this
organism was able to affect lots ofdifferent functions in the gut, more
so than we would anticipate a priori.
In order to figure out which genes inthe organisms were important, we wanted
to sequence the genome of that organism.
This was the late 90s andnot many microbial genome

(10:33):
sequencing projects were active.
Most of the projects werefocused on pathogens.
Going back to that book I alludedto before, this fascination of the
collision between pathogens andhuman hosts and how disease forms.
Most of the genome sequencing centersat the time were also racing to get
the first draft of the human genome.

(10:54):
So we decided to roll up our sleevesand set up all the technology
necessary for doing a genome sequenceand sequence this organism's genome.
It took us two years to do that.
And all the computational methods neededto identify or predict the function of
the genes in the genome of this organism.
And that sets the stage, of course, therest of our journey in many respects.

(11:17):
And it turns out that when we lookedinside this organism and saw its genome,
we saw so many functions that wereimportant for breaking down complex
carbohydrates in our diet that werenot represented in our own genome,
and it gave us the idea that a lotof the foundations for this wonderful
marriage between microbes and our gutwere predicated on nutrient sharing

(11:41):
and how microbes might contributeto the nutritional value of food.
And also the idea we could build up withincreasing complexity to find communities
of microbes where we would have thegenome sequence of these organisms.
We can install them into thesegerm free animals and we can look
at how they talk to one another.
The microbes to themselves,the microbes to the host..

(12:02):
At that time, we were thinkingabout human disease and how microbes
might influence nutritional status.
We were developmental biologists, soone idea that was very captivating was
to look at childhood undernutrition.
But we didn't have a school of publichealth, and we realized that any sort
of study of childhood undernutritionwould have to be conducted in a

(12:24):
setting where there was profoundcommunity engagement between the health
care providers and the populationso we could explain our intention.
We could get permission to dolongitudinal studies so we could
follow individuals over time.
We could understand what might be normal,how to define deviations from normal when
we looked at the microbial community,do tests to see whether those deviations

(12:45):
from normal might be an effect or acause of disease, identify therapeutic
targets, and maybe therapeutic agents.
So, to make a long story short, TahmeedAhmed, who is then Director of the
Nutritional Division at the InternationalCenter for Diarrheal Disease Research
in Bangladesh, and I found one another.
It was like brothers finding one anotherthat had been separated at birth.

(13:07):
We began a project that looked at therole of the gut microbial community
in children who had undernutrition.

And that really broke open a whole area of research.
And I wanted you to give us a littlecontext too about malnutrition.
It represents the leading causeof death in children under
the age of five worldwide.
Can you talk about that a little bitand how compelling it is to study
malnutrition, and possibly findsome ways to help these children.

Well, it is a global health challenge.
It's pressing, it's vexing, andit's tragic in many, many ways.
A lot of epidemiological studieshave been done to look at the

origins of childhood undernutrition: wasting, stunting, all the sequelae (13:47):
undefined
that are associated with that.
And by that I mean, the poordevelopment of an immune system, poor
responses to vaccination, impairedneurological development, metabolic
derangements, failure of bone to developproperly with stunting, many, many

(14:07):
different aspects of undernutrition.
And these epidemiologic studies haverevealed, continue to reveal, it's not
food insecurity alone that's responsible,that there are other factors that
operate within and across generations.
And we also know that this problemis intergenerational in the sense
that, if a mother is malnourished,the effects are going to be profound

(14:28):
on the child, and the outcome in achild's life is going to be significant.
Most of the treatments for undernutritionhave fortunately reduced mortality
or death, but they haven't overcomethe long-term complications of
undernutrition, stunting, immunologicaldysfunction failed neurodevelopment, and
we felt that we're missing something.

(14:49):
What else might contribute?
And also, we were missing acomprehensive definition of the
biological state of undernutrition.
So to make it as concise as possible,there is a World Health Organization
reference collection cohort ofchildren who are described as healthy.
They represent several nations and theheight and weight of these children

(15:12):
at different stages of postnatallife are included in this database.
And a child's growth is assessedbased on the degree to which they
approach the average of this cohort.
And stunting or other manifestationsof undernutrition are described as the
extent of deviation from this normal.

(15:33):
Now stunting is described as moderate orsevere based on the number of deviations
from the mean value or median value.
Wasting, which is a failureto gain weight also that way.
But who would ever describecancer as moderate or severe?
We need a much more comprehensivedefinition of the biological
state or states of undernutrition.

(15:53):
So that was one of our goals.

And here was our hypothesis (15:55):
that there was a definable normal program of assembly
of this microbial community beginningat birth, and that this program that
we had thought could be defined wasperturbed in children with undernutrition.
And that perturbation, that disruptionof this microbial organ's development
was not an effect, but rather acontributing cause of undernutrition.

(16:18):
And the final point is that wereally should think about our
development, at least after birth,from the perspective of this.
well-choreographed program of assemblingmicrobial communities that provide
functions that aren't in our ownhuman genome and the development of
our organ systems, so that we arereally a splendid combination of
microbial and human cells and parts.

(16:42):
So that's our hypothesis, and wewent through this multi-step journey
of defining normal in an area wherethe burden of disease was great,
trying to develop tools to quantifydeviations from normal, which we did.
And the program of assembly of thismicrobial community was determined
by studying so called birth cohorts,children enrolled at the time they were

(17:02):
born, and sampled monthly through thefirst two and then five years of life.
These birth cohort studies in children whoremain normal in terms of their gain of
height and weight allowed us to define whois in this microbial community of theirs.
We also saw how process was disrupted inchildren with undernutrition, so their
communities look younger than you wouldexpect based on their chronological age.

(17:26):
And then we returned to thesegerm free animals that I described
earlier, and did a test of causality.
What do I mean by that?
We took microbial communities fromchildren who were undernourished, and
microbial communities from children,same chronological age, who are healthy
in terms of their growth patterns,and transferred those communities to
the mice, and fed the mice the samediets as the children, and found

(17:49):
that we could transfer many of thefeatures of undernutrition to the mice.
That was an animal model.
And then we could also use a varietyof computational methods based on AI.
We were able to look at all thecommunities from all the children
that we tested and identify keyorganisms that were linked to growth,
at least in these animal models, andthey became our therapeutic targets.

(18:12):
So the animal models wererepresentative of the population
that we ultimately wanted totreat, and that was very important.

Tell me, at the time, this was a major breakthrough.
It was a major discovery.
What was the reaction like fromyour peers in the community?

I think it gave them a sense that our gut microbial
community operates in ways that extendwell beyond the wall of the gut,
and that these communities are ableto do things that influence so many
different aspects of our physiology.
And it also evoked the thought thatperhaps just adding calories or vitamins

(18:47):
and minerals were not sufficientto restore the healthy growth of
these children, that there has tobe some attention paid to the types
of metabolic activities that thesemicrobes in our gut perform on the
foods that we eat, so that the foods aretransformed into products that not only
benefit the microbes, but benefit us.

(19:09):
Every single family in the world hasto make a decision when their child
stops exclusive milk feeding andbegins to be weaned to a solid diet.
Now, none of the policies relatedto this time of quote unquote
complementary feeding are based ona consideration of the developmental

(19:29):
biology of the microbiota.
So could we envision ways in which certainfoods would sponsor the development
of a healthy microbiota and wouldn'tthat have a large impact on making
sure that our stewardship of ourchildren's precious microbial resources
would be the best possible and thatthey would realize healthy growth.

(19:50):
We are funded by the Billand Melinda Gates Foundation.
So imagine our publishing thesepapers and saying, okay, How can we
repair these microbial communities?
Well, if you're funded by the Bill andMelinda Gates Foundation, the first
thing you think about are solutionsthat are culturally acceptable,
affordable, effective, but also scalable.
So.

(20:11):
it's not feasible, at least at thetime, to simply create a next generation
probiotic cocktail composed of theseorganisms that were either inadequately
represented or not performing properlyand administer it to thousands
and tens of thousands of children.
There are technical problems,there are regulatory issues, etc.
So we turned to food.

(20:32):
We went back to our animal modelsand began to screen the different
complementary foods to identifythose foods that could affect,
that could target, that couldimpact our growth promoting
organisms that we had identified.
And we found those foods.
We formulated them in a combinationthat we called microbiota

(20:53):
directed complementary foods.
That's a big mouthful.
And we did clinical trials ofthese complementary foods and
had a pun intended bake off.
So this is a randomizedcontrolled clinical trial.
And we took the standard therapy used forchildren who had moderate malnutrition.
They were 12 to 18 months of age.
They lived in an urban slumin the capital of Bangladesh.

(21:16):
And we then looked at the effectsof the standard foods versus our
microbiota directed complementaryfoods . Now, interestingly enough,
the amount of calories in the foodsthat we had developed for transforming
or repairing the microbiota was less,fewer calories than the standard.
And despite the fact that therewas a difference in the amount of
calories, the children who consumedthe microbiota directed complementary

(21:40):
foods gained weight much more rapidly.
And when we looked, not only duringthe three months, period of treatment
but beyond because we followed thesechildren for two years after treatment.
We found that although there was nota significant difference in height
at the end of the three months duringthe follow up period after we stopped
treatment there was superior gain ofheight in those who had received the MDCF.

(22:05):
So the effects of this microbiota directedcomplementary food were longer lasting.
When you repair a microbial communityin this fashion, you have this wonderful
opportunity to connect the dots.
So as the microbial community isbeing repaired, what parts that are
changing in the microbial communityare parts that affect bone growth or

(22:26):
musculoskeletal development or metabolismor Central Nervous System Development.
And this is one of the keyopportunities in this field.
As we learn how to repair amicrobial community, we can see
how its parts function and whattheir effects are on our biology.

I want to hear more about the food specifically as well.
If you don't mind sharing, whatwas the difference in the diets
that you were able to provide?

We had soy flour, peanut flour, we had
banana, we had chickpea flour.
We also had a source of lipids, soybeanoil, and we had vitamins and minerals.
The other standard of care formulationhad rice and lentil, milk powder, the same
lipids and the same minerals and vitamins.
But microbes don't see the word chickpea.

(23:15):
They don't see soy.
They don't see the word banana.
What they see are themolecules in those foods.
We're living in a remarkable timewhen we have to make very profound
decisions about the food systems thatwe create, which cultivars we plant,
which foods are more nutritious.
And the microbes can help us do that,answer those types of questions.

I mean, I can't help but to think of the quote, let food be
thy medicine and medicine be thy food.
I mean, that really speaksto what you have done here.

When we saw this result our clinical outcome
measure, we paused for a moment andsmiled, but the real work was ahead
of us, and that was to take a deeperdive into, which organisms in the
microbial community were responding?
How are they responding?
And could the genes that they changedin terms of how they were expressed give

(24:07):
us a clue about the active componentof these different complementary foods?
What were the actual molecules?
And also how were those moleculesacting on some, but not all
members of the microbial community?
Because we knew that the targetswere the first responders, the
second responders in the microbialcommunity, we could get a better view

(24:27):
about how well equipped a child wouldbe to respond to this intervention.

Let's fast forward (24:31):
we identified the bioactive components of these foods and
they were complex polysaccharides largely.
And these carbohydrate structures,distributed in different complementary
foods, we're being seen by organismswho had the capacity to not only detect
them, but import them and transformthem and to produce products that

(24:52):
would not only benefit themselves butalso other members of the community
and presumably the human host.
If you know what the bioactive componentsare, we can think ahead, try to understand
what other food types contain them?
Or could we mine the by productstreams from food manufacturing?
The rinds, the pulps, the seeds thatare normally thrown out, and recover

(25:16):
these active molecules at scale andthink someday that perhaps we could have
cocktail, compounds that would be covetedby these organisms that could be given as
sprinkles or some sort of addition to anormal diet so as to enhance the capacity
of these microbial communities of childrenwho are at risk for, already have manifest

(25:38):
undernutrition, to have a healthy life.

I mean, this could have a huge impact on the future
evolution of humanity, really, on a muchlarger scale of something like that.
How far away do you thinkwe are from having something
like this become a reality?

The first task is to determine how
generalizable these effects are.
So, if we give this therapeuticfood to children living in different
countries, all in the same agerange, what will the effects be?
Will they be similar acrossdifferent geographies,
different cultural traditions?
How about the age in which we firstadminister the therapeutic food?

(26:14):
If a child manifests undernutritionearly in life, will her or his developing
microbial community respond in the sameway to a child that manifests a disrupted
program of community development later on.
So when can we first detect thedevelopment of undernutrition?
How can we detect the first failuresof the community to develop?

(26:36):
And one of the values of theinvestments of the Gates Foundation
in these clinical trials is to spendthe time and financial resources to
understand mechanisms of disease.
What are the biomolecules that arepresent in the active therapeutic food?
But also, who are theorganisms that are responding?
Which suites of genes arepresent in their genomes?

(26:57):
Could that be used diagnosticallyto stratify the population prior
to treatment as to whether theyare likely to respond or not?
What types of changes in bloodproteins occur, give us an idea
of how to categorize differentstates of undernutrition?
Disease responses?
Can we predict disease response?
Can we do adaptive trials?
Right now, the World Health Organization,the Gates Foundation, and UNICEF have

(27:20):
teamed together so that we can doclinical trials of our therapeutic
foods in six different countries.
representing different geographiesand cultural traditions to see about
the generalizability of the effect.
Also across different ageranges, from six to 24 months.
That will be an important eventfor us to get a body of scientific

(27:41):
data confirming the efficacy.
There are also importantregulatory issues.
How will these foods be classified?
How will they be used in differentcountries based on their policies?
How cost effective will they be?
They also raised the questionof how to educate a population

(28:02):
about the meaning of these foods.
And that issue of education comesvery early on in this multi step
journey to be of paramount importance.
We have to explain at this timethat we did the first birth cohort
studies, why were we doing this?
We have to explain to a population ofwomen who are very committed to the

(28:23):
wellbeing of their children, but whosescientific literacy was very low.
What is a microbial community?
What is a microbiota?
Why are we trying todo something about it?
Who owns their microbes?
What can we ask for in terms of future useof biological samples that we collect not
only during our observational studies, butalso during our actual clinical trials.

So many ethical considerations with a vulnerable
population to consider.

Absolutely.
I think that there is a dimensionalityto this global health challenge that is
captivating, awe inspiring and humbling.
But nonetheless, that multifacetedview is going to be critical
if we are to have impact.
The partnerships that have to beforged to be able to consider this
in a mindful, thoughtful, effectiveway have to be durable partnerships

(29:15):
involving people with expertise thatspan many different subject areas.
That's so exhilarating, so growthpromoting for ourselves, for the
students, for everybody who's involved.
It also has a huge impacton how we educate students.
This is an inherentlyinterdisciplinary area.
So how do you bring students together inan environment where, although they have

(29:38):
different expertise, there's a sense ofhumility, other directedness, so people
can open up and say, I don't understand.
Can we educate one another?
Can there be a sense of shared joyas we climb a very tall mountain
and embark on tasks that are verychallenging, that are uncertain?
And can this spirit of collaboration, ofcooperation, of operating in ways where

(30:04):
we leverage our naivete collectively, tolearn more, can that be one of the most
enduring lessons of the students who werelucky enough to have enter our laboratory?
And can their career be influencedby this sense of community?
And also, we're living in a centurythat provides us with absolutely

(30:25):
profound challenges that will requirecommitments of many, many people
working together over the course ofnot only one lifetime, but multiple
lifetimes to address and to solve.
And I think that it gives me greathope that there are students who I've
been fortunate enough personally tohave knock on the door who have that.
sense of humility, of hopefulness,of a desire to commit their lives to

(30:49):
make the world a better place, notfrom recognition, but just from the
fact that that is a measure of howthey value the merits of their life
work and their lives themselves.

I mean, it sounds like you are building an incredible team
that is going to take this work andcontinue pushing it into the future.
And I know, again, congratulationson winning this Nemmers Prize.
Can you talk to me about how you'regoing to be able to leverage this
prize to continue this work?

First of all, we, not me, we are very, very
grateful for this prize because itdoes reflect the collective work of
so many talented people over timewithin the lab, our collaborators.
But I think also the fact that thisprize, which recognizes area of medicine,
of medical research that are thought tohave impact not only now, but also in the

(31:38):
future, and to change the way that we viewhealth and disease, and to transform also
not only our view of health and disease,but our ways of treatment and prevention.
If the microbiome is elevated to thatlevel in this form, I think it provides an
important substance, important motivation.

(31:58):
important attention to theopportunities that we have in this area.
As long as we are very thoughtful indescribing what we know now that we avoid
hyperbole that we have sobriety, andthat we use rigorous, clinical trials,
rigorously studied preclinical models,this translational pathway in this era

(32:20):
of precision medicine that is reallya virtuous circle to be able to really
move forward and impact human health.
But we're also talking about doing thisin countries that are high income, as well
as countries, in this particular case,that are largely low and middle income
where there are disparities of access,issues of social justice, there are huge,

(32:43):
huge problems how we can afford this,how can we make it the most effective
type of therapeutic and preventativemeasures and policies possible.
That's one of the things that this awardI think will naturally highlight because
our discussion, like the discussionwe're having right now, is not only
about the basic science and the clinicalscience, but how that intersects with

(33:04):
regulation, with policy, with education.

Your work is also transforming the way that we think about
food and the ingredients in the food thatwe're feeding our children and ourselves
and how important it is to human health.
There's a lot of interest in thistopic and mainstream media, more
people know about the importance ofgut health and the microbiome, but do
you think more needs to be done andacademic medical centers and research

(33:30):
institutions and in medical educationto bring nutrition to the forefront?

I think you raise an incredibly important point,
which is that we're really talkingabout the intersection between
food science, microbiome science,and medicine nutritional sciences.
And you're absolutely right.
Those are linked inexorably anddeserve increasing attention.
Particularly as we go into this timeof an almost existential crisis with

(34:00):
climate change, what kind of foodsystems are we going to establish?
What kind of food systems can we support?
How are the food staples thatare coming out of these food
systems going to be processed?
What is the effect of processing on thenutritional value or content of the food?
And how does the transformation of thosefoods by our microbial community further
define the nutritional value of foods orthe potential nutritional value of foods?

(34:24):
So, this is an importantthing to consider.
And one that can't be ignored.

Well, you're on the cusp of many things here and it's
very exciting and we can't wait to seewhat happens next with your research.
So thank you so much for beinga part of this podcast and
sharing your research story.
It's very inspiring and I hopethat you've inspired people
here with your story today.

Well, thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.

Thanks for listening, and be sure to subscribe
to this show on Apple Podcasts orwherever you listen to podcasts.
And rate and review us alsofor medical professionals.
This episode of Breakthroughsis available for CME Credit.
Go to our website, feinbergnorthwestern edu, and search CME.

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