Human and Environmental Microbial Health: A Global Perspective

The human microbiome is now recognized as a dynamic part of the human ecosystem, and research demonstrates that using ecology to understand this ecosystem has profound benefits for patient wellness. Changes in the human microbiome have substantial influence on atopy, neurological disorders, metabolic disorders, and a range of complex conditions and disease states. Professor Gilbert will discuss evidence of these conditions and how we have started to disturb the delicate balance of the immune-microbe equilibrium, impacting the development and function of our immune systems. He will also highlight the distance we have placed between our children and the microbial world, which has been demonstrated to have a substantial influence on their physiological, immunological, neurological and even endocrinological development.

Jack Gilbert is a Professor at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics and Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Sponsored by the Office of the President, the Biology Department, and Atwater Commons.