microbiome

Introducing NIH’s Newest Lasker Scholars

Program Gives Boost to Early Stage Investigators

Alison Boyce, Ian Myles, Jacqueline Mays, Yogen Kanthi, and Stephanie Chung

If TV shows like The Voice and America’s Got Talent are any indication, there are many extremely talented people out there who could become huge successes if presented with the right opportunity. This is no less the case in science, with thousands of extremely bright individuals quietly toiling away in their mentors’ labs as they await the chance to establish research programs of their own.

Fortunately, initiatives like the NIH’s Lasker Clinical Research Scholars Program exist to boost promising young researchers on to the next stage of their careers. Every year, the Lasker program allows a small group of early stage physician-scientists to establish their own labs at the NIH and carry out independent clinical research there for at least five years.

The five talented investigators selected as 2020 Lasker Scholars are pursuing a wide range of research questions, from how the immune system influences blood clotting to the mechanisms driving a rare and devastating skeletal disorder. Read on to learn more about the latest crop of researchers ramping up IRP labs of their very own.

IRP’s Julie Segre Elected to the National Academy of Medicine

NIH Researcher Recognized for Investigation into the Skin Microbiome

Dr. Julie Segre

The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), first established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences as the Institute of Medicine (IOM), is comprised of more than 2,000 elected members from around the world who provide scientific and policy guidance on important matters relating to human health. Election to the NAM is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine that recognizes individuals who have not only made critical scientific discoveries but have also demonstrated a laudable commitment to public service.

IRP senior investigator Julie Segre, Ph.D., was one of four IRP researchers elected to the NAM in 2019. Dr. Segre leads the Translational and Functional Genomics Branch at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), where she studies the way in which the skin forms a barrier between the body and the environment. In particular, her research uses genetic sequencing to understand the bacterial and fungal microbes that live on human skin.

Mouth Microbes Turn Treasonous in Gum Disease

Four Questions with Dr. Niki Moutsopoulos

bacteria

Our mouths are teeming with bacteria, a microbial ecosystem known as the oral microbiome. While these microbes are typically benign, under certain circumstances they can turn harmful and contribute to oral diseases such as periodontitis, a form of chronic gum disease characterized by microbe-driven inflammation of the soft tissues and bone that support our teeth. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), roughly 65 million Americans aged 30 or older have some degree of periodontitis. In its early stage, known as gingivitis, the gums become swollen and red due to inflammation, which is the body’s natural response to the presence of bacteria. If the condition worsens, it can lead to loose teeth and, eventually, bone or tooth loss.

NIH senior investigator Niki Moutsopoulos, Ph.D., head of the Oral Immunity and Inflammation Section at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), studies periodontitis and aims to understand the immune system’s role in driving this destruction. In a 2018 study, she and her team of IRP researchers and outside collaborators discovered that an abnormal and unhealthy population of microbes in the mouth causes specialized immune cells, known as T helper 17 (Th17) cells, to trigger inflammation and destroy tissue, leading to periodontitis.

A New Understanding of What’s Living on Your Skin

Five Questions with Dr. Heidi Kong and Dr. Julia Segre

microbes within a human body

When people think of skin health, they often think of protecting it from harmful UV rays or finding ways to avoid the fine lines and wrinkles that often come with aging and sun exposure. However, there are many factors and illnesses that impact skin health, including eczema, a chronic condition that affects tens of millions of Americans and causes the skin to become red and so itchy that it can interfere with patients’ sleep.

To combat such conditions, IRP researchers have spent decades investigating what causes them in humans through techniques such as immunology, genetics, molecular biology, and structural biology. In a 2014 study of healthy volunteers, IRP investigators Julia Segre, Ph.D., and Heidi Kong, M.D., M.H.Sc., used the latest genomic techniques to investigate the collection of microorganisms living on healthy human skin, known as the skin microbiome, in an attempt to understand how this collection of bacteria, fungi, and viruses may contribute to skin health. From their interdisciplinary research, the team was able to show that the array of microbes living on human skin is extremely diverse, varying greatly from individual to individual and between different areas of the body. This research opened doors for additional studies exploring how changes in the skin microbiome contribute to both common and rare skin diseases.

Diabetes Drug Helps Patients by Modifying the Microbiome

bacteria in the digestive system

The more scientists have learned about the community of benign bacteria inside our bodies, known as the microbiome, the more effort they have put into recruiting it in the fight against disease. What’s more, scientists occasionally discover that treatments long thought to work completely independently of our native microbes also relieve symptoms by interacting with them. New IRP research into the most commonly used medication for type 2 diabetes has led to just such a revelation by demonstrating that its benefits stem in part from its ability to kill off a particular species of bacteria in the human digestive tract.

Microbes Within Us: A Chat With Science Writer Ed Yong

human silhouettes surrounding microbes

Research into the collection of microorganisms that live in and on our bodies — known as the microbiome — has dramatically expanded in recent years. In fact, the field is one of 12 domains designated as top long-term IRP research priorities. Since the establishment of the NIH’s Human Microbiome Project in 2007, investment in microbiome research across the IRP has increased over forty-fold and now occurs in dozens of labs across more than 20 institutes and centers.

Gut Bugs May Convert High-Fat Fare into Cancer Risk

cartoon image of the gut microbiome showing microbes in the digestive tract

Researchers have a long history of fattening up mice to gain insight into the causes and consequences of weight gain in the human body. In one of the more recent studies of this kind, a team of IRP researchers found that that a high-fat diet consistently altered the collection of microbes residing in mice’s digestive tracts and that this diet-microbe combination might pre-dispose the mice – and, potentially, obese humans – to colon cancer by triggering certain changes in how genes behave.

Six Paths Forward in Biomedical Research

NIH Clinical Center

Last month I moderated our annual retreat with the NIH Scientific Directors, those individuals tasked with leading their Institute or Center (IC)-based intramural research program. We were joined by many of the IC Clinical Directors. And this year we decided to do something a little different: listen to a series of talks about exciting, new IRP research.

Yasmine Belkaid Wins Sanofi–Institut Pasteur 2016 Award

Yasmine Belkaid

Yasmine Belkaid, chief of the Mucosal Immunology Section in the NIAID Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, has won the Sanofi–Institut Pasteur 2016 International Mid-Career Award for “outstanding research in the life sciences…contributing to progress in global public health,” announced on December 13, 2016 in Paris.

Microbiome: The Next Frontier in Human Health

At the beginning of every episode of the sci-fi series Star Trek, William Shatner repeated the words, “Space: the final frontier.” However, in all of Star Trek’s 79 episodes, Captain James T. Kirk and crew never encountered anything like the number and diversity of species that exists within the human microbiome.

Microbiome video