Akintunde Emiola, Ph.D.

The human microbiome contributes to the overall health of its host through multiple mechanisms (e.g. nutrient breakdown, colonization resistance to pathogens, etc.). In addition, microbes represent a rich source for the discovery of new therapeutics; for instance, ~70% of antibiotics in use today were obtained from microbes! The overarching goal of our lab is to combine computation and experimental techniques to study microbial communities for the discovery of new therapeutics.

Our lab is particularly interested in understanding how microbes interact in their ecosystem, contribute to diseases, and how they suppress the growth of competitors through the secretion of antimicrobials. We aim to use information on the microbiome to predict disease and outcomes, as well as developing ways to modulate it to improve human health.

Dr. Emiola received his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, respectively, from the University of East London, United Kingdom. His graduate work focused on developing computational kinetic models to study bacterial pathway dynamics, with the goal of identifying suitable drug targets. Dr. Emiola’s work led to the discovery of a potent antimicrobial molecule which served as the basis for the establishment of a biotech company.

Dr. Emiola received a highly selective JAX Scholar award for his postdoctoral training at the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, USA, to conduct research on the microbiome where he developed computational tools and pipelines to analyze metagenomics datasets. Most recently, his work focused on developing a technology to characterize total nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) from single microbial cells for high-throughput identification of novel antibiotics. His effort in this area was rewarded with an NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence award. In 2021, Dr. Emiola was appointed as a Stadtman Investigator at NIDCR.