Hosting Organizations: MSE and the University of Maine Institute of Medicine.
Panel discussion on Prenatal to early-life microbes and health
March 8, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. This event has passed and was not recorded.
This Wednesday, we’ll be bringing all of our Theme 2 speakers back to engage in a panel discussion together on the microbiome in early life. Panel will be hosted by Emily Wissel and Sue Ishaq.
Please note, this session will only be featured live in real-time and will not be recorded.
Dr. Eldin Jašarević, who presented on “The maternal microbiota and offspring development: Towards a translational systems approach in maternal-child health.”
Dr. Merilee Brockway, who presented on “The maternal microbiota and offspring development: Towards a translational systems approach in maternal-child health.”
Dr. Sarah Lebeer, who presented on T’he vaginal microbiome: key for women’s health & healthy newborns’.
Next week, we’ll start our “The environment, microbes, and us” theme!
March 1, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. This event has passed, watch the recording here.
Dr. Sarah Lebeer is a research professor at the Department of Bioscience Engineering of the University of Antwerp, Belgium. She has studied bioscience engineering, with a specialisation in cell and gene biotechnology and food & health and obtained her Master’s degree at KU Leuven (Belgium) in 2004. In 2008, she obtained a PhD degree in Bioscience Engineering with a topic on probiotics and inflammatory bowel diseases (KU Leuven). After a postdoc on the interaction between lactobacilli, viruses and mucosal immunology, Sarah was offered a tenure track position in applied microbiology and biotechnology at the Department of Bioscience Engineering of the University of Antwerp in Nov 2011. In 2020, Sarah obtained an ERC StG Grant (Lacto-Be) that enables her to gain in-depth knowledge of the evolutionary history and ecology of lactobacilli. Within this ERC project, Sarah has launched the Isala citizen-science project to gain new insights in the ecology and role of vaginal lactobacilli for women’s health, but also to actively involve women to contribute with ideas on how to improve vaginal health and break some taboos together (https://isala.be/en). This project has won the communication award from the Young Academy and Royal Academy of Science KVAB in 2021.
Panel discussion on Prenatal to early-life microbes and health
This week, we’ll be bringing all of our Theme 2 speakers back to engage in a panel discussion together on the microbiome in early life. Panel will be hosted by Emily Wissel.
Please note, this session will only be featured live in real-time and will not be recorded.
February 22, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. This event has passed, watch the recording here.
Dr. Merilee Brockway is a PhD prepared nurse and International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) with expertise in maternal-child health, infant feeding, and patient engagement. She completed my PhD in nursing at the University of Calgary, examining maternal breastfeeding self-efficacy and infant feeding outcomes in moderate and late preterm infants. She also completed a three year post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Manitoba in Dr. Meghan Azad’s THRIVE Discovery Lab, exploring clinical applications of donor human milk for preterm infants. As an Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary, her program of research examines the use of human milk as a clinical intervention to mitigate early life perturbations to the infant microbiome.
Upcoming seminars on Prenatal to early-life microbes and health
“The vaginal microbiome: key for women’s health & healthy newborns”
This week, we’ll be bringing all of our Theme 2 speakers back to engage in a panel discussion together on the microbiome in early life. Panel will be hosted by Emily Wissel.
Please note, this session will only be featured live in real-time and will not be recorded.
February 15, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. This event has passed, watch the recording.
Eldin (he/him) is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and Computational and Systems Biology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He is also Primary Investigator at Magee-Womens Research Institute. Eldin received a PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Missouri and the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders studying the combined effects of maternal stress and diet on sex-specific brain development in mice. Eldin completed his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Tracy Bale at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Maryland School of Medicine. His postdoc work showed that lifetime experiences influence the composition and function of maternal microbiome, and vertical transmission of these communities is causally linked to poor health outcomes in offspring. Current research interests include mining the human maternal microbiota for novel functions that contribute to offspring development, and ultimately gaining a better understanding of the ways in which the prenatal environment shapes the postnatal response to the external microbial world. For this work, Eldin has been selected as a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and is the recipient of a National Research Service Award from NIMH, and a Research Scientist Development Award from NIDDK.
Upcoming seminars on Prenatal to early-life microbes and health
“Intersecting breastmilk and microbiome science with the complexity of working with humans in a clinical context”
This week, we’ll be bringing all of our Theme 2 speakers back to engage in a panel discussion together on the microbiome in early life. Panel will be hosted by Emily Wissel.
Please note, this session will only be featured live in real-time and will not be recorded.
Hosting Organizations: MSE and the University of Maine Institute of Medicine.
Panel discussion on Gut microbiome, nutrition, and food security
February 8, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. This event has passed, and was not recorded.
Today, we’ll be bringing all of our Theme 1 speakers back to engage in a panel discussion together on the gut microbiome. Panel will be hosted by Sue Ishaq.
Please note, this session will only be featured live in real-time and will not be recorded.
Dr. Yanyan Li, PhD, who presented on “Broccoli Sprout Bioactives and Gut Microbiota: A Dietary Approach for Prevention and Management of Inflammatory Bowel Disease”.
Dr. Dany Fanfan, Ph.D., MSN, RN, who presented on ” Exploring Health determinants, Gut Microbiome, and Health Outcomes in Immigrants”.
Dr. Sean Gibbons, PhD, who presented on “Personalized nutrition and the human gut microbiome”.
Hosting Organizations: MSE and the University of Maine Institute of Medicine.
Panel discussion on Gut microbiome, nutrition, and food security
February 8, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. This event has passed, and was not recorded.
This week, we’ll be bringing all of our Theme 1 speakers back to engage in a panel discussion together on the gut microbiome. Panel will be hosted by Sue Ishaq.
Please note, this session will only be featured live in real-time and will not be recorded.
Dr. Yanyan Li, PhD, who presented on “Broccoli Sprout Bioactives and Gut Microbiota: A Dietary Approach for Prevention and Management of Inflammatory Bowel Disease”.
Dr. Dany Fanfan, Ph.D., MSN, RN, who presented on ” Exploring Health determinants, Gut Microbiome, and Health Outcomes in Immigrants”.
Dr. Sean Gibbons, PhD, who presented on “Personalized nutrition and the human gut microbiome”.
February 1, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. This event has passed, watch the recording here.
Dr. Sean Gibbons is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Systems Biology, a non-profit research consortium. His lab develops computational and experimental tools for exploring and manipulating host-microbe systems.
Added by Sue: The work from Sean’s group and collaborators has been reshaping the way that host microbial researchers approach their work, by revealing trends through large metanalyses and novel perspectives on using data. Their most recent work has evaluated host-microbial interactions, metabolites, and health.
For the last three years, Sean’s lab has hosted the ISB Virtual Microbiome Series, which is freely available and attracts several thousand participants. The series includes a two day workshop that teaches data analysis skills, and a day-long symposium featuring discussions of current discoveries and conceptualizes the future of microbiome research.
Finally, Sean and his research group have been making science a more welcoming and inclusive place.
Up next week: Panel discussion on Gut microbiome, nutrition, and food security
This week, we’ll be bringing all of our Theme 1 speakers (Drs. Yanyan Li, Dany Fanfan, and Sean Gibbons) back to engage in a panel discussion together on the gut microbiome. Panel will be hosted by Sue Ishaq.
Please note, this session will only be featured live in real-time and will not be recorded.
January 25, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. This event has passed, watch the recording here.
Dr. Dany Fanfan is an Assistant Professor at the University of Florida (UF) College of Nursing. Before becoming a faculty, she completed a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing at Florida International University, Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Nursing at the University of South Florida, and a post-doctoral fellowship at UF focused on mental health research with and for underrepresented populations (e.g., Latino/Haitian immigrant farmworkers, rural Latino/LGBTQ+ adolescents) using a community-based participatory research approach and social network analysis. She teaches and engages in multidisciplinary mixed-methods research dedicated to advancing the science and practice of reducing mental health disparities among minoritized immigrants by exploring the underlying biobehavioral, cultural, and psychosocial mechanisms of distress symptoms. With support from an NIH K23 career development award, she is now incorporating microbial metagenomics and bioinformatics methods in her research by examining the associations between post-migration social determinants of health, gut microbiome, and psychological distress among recent Haitian immigrants. The long-term goal of her interdisciplinary translational program of research is to identify and address the conditions that create and sustain health disparities in minoritized populations as well as develop and test culturally responsive interventions that target social, behavioral, and biological determinants of health to improve long-term health outcomes, reduce behavioral and mental health disparities, and increase health equity.
Upcoming Seminars of the ‘Gut microbiome, nutrition, and food security’ theme
“Personalized nutrition and the human gut microbiome”
This week, we’ll be bringing all of our Theme 1 speakers back to engage in a panel discussion together on the gut microbiome. Panel will be hosted by Sue Ishaq.
Please note, this session will only be featured live in real-time and will not be recorded.
January 18, 2023; Wednesday,11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST. This event has passed, view the recording.
Dr. Li is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maine. She received her PhD degree in Nutrition and Food Science from Ohio State University. She has been dedicating herself to studying the mechanisms of diet-derived bioactives in protecting against disease process and harnessing the gained knowledge to develop dietary approaches for disease prevention and management for more than a decade. Since 2016, she has been focusing on the interactions between dietary components, in particular glucosinolates from cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and broccoli sprouts, and gut microbiota, aiming to develop a combined approach for inflammatory bowel disease. Her current research projects are funded by NIH/NIDDK, USDA/NIFA AFRI Foundational Program, and nutrition research programs of private foundations.
Added by Sue: For the past few years, Yanyan and her colleagues have also included the Ishaq Lab, and has led to a rewarding and productive collaboration which has resulted in several recent and forthcoming publications, funding awards, and students trained.
Upcoming Seminars of the ‘Gut microbiome, nutrition, and food security’ theme
“Exploring Health Determinants, Gut Microbiome, and Health Outcomes in Immigrants”
This week, we’ll be bringing all of our Theme 1 speakers back to engage in a panel discussion together on the gut microbiome. Panel will be hosted by Sue Ishaq.
Please note, this session will only be featured live in real-time and will not be recorded.
Dr. Li is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maine. She received her PhD degree in Nutrition and Food Science from Ohio State University. She has been dedicating herself to studying the mechanisms of diet-derived bioactives in protecting against disease process and harnessing the gained knowledge to develop dietary approaches for disease prevention and management for more than a decade. Since 2016, she has been focusing on the interactions between dietary components, in particular glucosinolates from cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and broccoli sprouts, and gut microbiota, aiming to develop a combined approach for inflammatory bowel disease. Her current research projects are funded by NIH/NIDDK, USDA/NIFA AFRI Foundational Program, and nutrition research programs of private foundations.
Added by Sue: For the past few years, Yanyan and her colleagues have also included the Ishaq Lab, and has led to a rewarding and productive collaboration which has resulted in several recent and forthcoming publications, funding awards, and students trained.
“Exploring Health Determinants, Gut Microbiome, and Health Outcomes in Immigrants”
Dr. Dany Fanfan is an Assistant Professor at the University of Florida (UF) College of Nursing. Before becoming a faculty, she completed a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing at Florida International University, Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Nursing at the University of South Florida, and a post-doctoral fellowship at UF focused on mental health research with and for underrepresented populations (e.g., Latino/Haitian immigrant farmworkers, rural Latino/LGBTQ+ adolescents) using a community-based participatory research approach and social network analysis. She teaches and engages in multidisciplinary mixed-methods research dedicated to advancing the science and practice of reducing mental health disparities among minoritized immigrants by exploring the underlying biobehavioral, cultural, and psychosocial mechanisms of distress symptoms. With support from an NIH K23 career development award, she is now incorporating microbial metagenomics and bioinformatics methods in her research by examining the associations between post-migration social determinants of health, gut microbiome, and psychological distress among recent Haitian immigrants. The long- term goal of her interdisciplinary translational program of research is to identify and address the conditions that create and sustain health disparities in minoritized populations as well as develop and test culturally responsive interventions that target social, behavioral, and biological determinants of health to improve long-term health outcomes, reduce behavioral and mental health disparities, and increase health equity.
“Personalized nutrition and the human gut microbiome”
Dr. Sean Gibbons is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Systems Biology, a non-profit research consortium. His lab develops computational and experimental tools for exploring and manipulating host-microbe systems.
Added by Sue: The work from Sean’s group and collaborators has been reshaping the way that host microbial researchers approach their work, by revealing trends through large metanalyses and novel perspectives on using data. Their most recent work has evaluated host-microbial interactions, metabolites, and health.
For the last three years, Sean’s lab has hosted the ISB Virtual Microbiome Series, which is freely available and attracts several thousand participants. The series includes a two day workshop that teaches data analysis skills, and a day-long symposium featuring discussions of current discoveries and conceptualizes the future of microbiome research.
Finally, Sean and his research group have been making science a more welcoming and inclusive place.
Panel discussion on Gut microbiome, nutrition, and food security
This week, we’ll be bringing all of our Theme 1 speakers back to engage in a panel discussion together on the gut microbiome. Panel will be hosted by Sue Ishaq.
Please note, this session will only be featured live in real-time and will not be recorded.
Prenatal to early-life microbes and health
Theme organized by Emily Wissel.
Speaker confirmed but time TBD:
Dr. Eldin Jašarević, PhD. Magee-Womens Research Institute, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Dr. Merilee Brockway is a PhD prepared nurse and International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) with expertise in maternal-child health, infant feeding, and patient engagement. She completed my PhD in nursing at the University of Calgary, examining maternal breastfeeding self-efficacy and infant feeding outcomes in moderate and late preterm infants. She also completed a three year post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Manitoba in Dr. Meghan Azad’s THRIVE Discovery Lab, exploring clinical applications of donor human milk for preterm infants. As an Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary, her program of research examines the use of human milk as a clinical intervention to mitigate early life perturbations to the infant microbiome.
This week, we’ll be bringing all of our Theme 2 speakers back to engage in a panel discussion together on the microbiome in early life. Panel will be hosted by Emily Wissel.
Please note, this session will only be featured live in real-time and will not be recorded.
The environment, microbes, and us
Anthropology Theme organized by Katherine Daiy and Kieran O’Doherty, and Environmental Theme organized by Mallory Choudoir, Mustafa Saifuddin, and Hannah Holland-Moritz.
Speakers confirmed by time TBD:
Dr. Stephanie Schnorr, University of Vienna, “The human-valued interest in microbiome science is the distillation of human-environmental interactions”
David Good is a PhD student in microbiology at the University of Guelph, Ontario. His general research goal is characterizing the structural and functional microbial diversity of his Yanomami family, the Irokae-teri, located in the Amazon rainforest of Venezuela. They are of great interest in the microbiome field since the Irokae-teri live fully immersed in the rainforest environment and subsist by an active lifestyle of hunting-gathering and small-scale gardening. Furthermore, their relative isolation deep in the Amazon limits their exposure to microbiome stressors such as antibiotics, highly refined and processed foods, industrial toxins and pollutants, food preservatives, etc. David will discuss this unique and rare opportunity to advance our understanding of the human microbiome of a community largely unperturbed by westernization, while building global awareness on the importance of protecting these few remaining isolated indigenous societies. However, such research brings numerous challenges surrounding bioethics. David hopes to build dialogue around going beyond simple compliance in microbiome research, and how the Yanomami have the right to self-determination and harness their bioeconomic potential to protect their home.
Dr. Bradford is a research scholar in NC State’s Public Science Lab for Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity of Humans and Food where she draws together interdisciplinary engagement of microbes, exploring fermentation, probiotic health and pathogens. Working at the intersections of religion, microbiology, ecology and race, Dr. Bradford’s research investigates the historical entanglement of disease theories, public health strategy, Christian thought, and coloniality to cultivate ecological wisdom, scientific engagement and the pursuit of environmental justice in religious contexts. She asks questions like, how have the historical entanglement of epidemiology, coloniality and Christian teaching contributed to the disease of both body and planet, the disproportionate effects of which are born by black and brown communities? How has demonizing the microbe paved the way for oppression of those deemed sub-human? And how might microbiome science reform Christian thought that often disrupts engagement of science and is complicit in exploitative and exclusionary ways of being?
Dr. Anna Krzywoszynska is starting a position as an Associate Professor of Transdisciplinary Human-Environment Relations, Faculty of Humanities, University of Oulu, Finland.
This week, we’ll be bringing all of our Theme 3 speakers back to engage in a panel discussion together on the importance of environmental microbiomes and our place in ecosystems, and then will continue talking about soil health. Panel will be hosted byKatherine Daiy, Kieran O’Doherty, Mallory Choudoir, Mustafa Saifuddin, and Hannah Holland-Moritz.
Please note, this session will only be featured live in real-time and will not be recorded.
The Ishaq Lab 