Speakers
Robert Britton
Professor
Therapeutic Microbiology Laboratory
Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology, Room 663E
Robert Britton is a Professor in the Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine and a Member of the Alkek Center for Metagenomics and Microbiome Research. He earned his B.S. in Biology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1989. From 1990-1996 he completed his PhD work with Dr. James R. Lupski in the area of cell cycle regulation of Escherichia coli at Baylor College of Medicine. From 1996-2002 he performed postdoctoral research with Dr. Alan Grossman at MIT in the areas of Gram-positive cell cycle research and applying newly developed microarray technology to Bacillus subtilis. His first faculty position (2003-2014) was in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Michigan State University, where he rose to the rank of Professor. During this time he interacted closely with members of the National Center for Microbial Ecology and developed a research program focused on probiotic bacteria and their interactions with animals and humans. In 2010, he became interested in how the microbiome impacts the ability of pathogens to invade the host and has led a team that developed in vitro and in vivo models to study the function of human microbial communities. In 2014 he moved the Therapeutic Microbiology Laboratory to Baylor College of Medicine where the main focus of his group is to identify next-generation microbial therapeutics for the prevention and treatment of human disease.
Elizabeth Corwin, PhD, RN, FAAN
Associate Dean for Research and Professor
Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing
Emory University
Elizabeth Corwin, PhD, RN, FAAN, is the Associate Dean for Research and Professor at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory University. Dr. Corwin is a Physiologist and a family nurse practitioner. Dr. Corwin’s research is aimed at uncovering the biological mechanisms responsible for adverse outcomes in pregnant and postpartum women, especially low-income and minority women as well as their infants, with a focus on the effect of chronic stress on the microbiome. She is Principle Investigator on two NIH-funded studies focused on maternal and infant health: “Biobehavioral Determinants of the Microbiome and Preterm Birth in Black Women” (R01NR014800) and “Maternal Stress and the Gut-Brain Axis in African American Infants” (R01MD009746).
Linda Duffy, PhD., MPH
Scientific Chair, Trans-NIH DNRC/NCC/PPWG
Inter-agency Probiotics/Prebiotics and Microbiome SIG
Dr. Linda Duffy is a Health Scientist Administrator at the National Institutes of Health/National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Dr. Duffy also serves as the Trans-NIH and Inter-agency Scientific Chair of the Probiotics/Prebiotics and Microbiome Working Group under the NIH Office of the Director on partnering initiatives with federal government agencies and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Her position focuses on building Programs as Centers of Excellence in natural products research, with special emphasis on probiotic/prebiotic foods and pharmacologic safety studies on gut microecology and microbiome. Her research includes health impacts on immunologic inflammatory responses, maternal-child health, brain-gut interactions, obesity, and aging. Before returning to federal government in 2004, Dr. Duffy served as Professor in joint appointments in the School of Medicine, at the University of Buffalo for over 15 years. She has published over 100 articles, and has been an Invited Speaker at many National and International Conferences over her 30 year career. She recently co-authored an article addressing progress and challenges in developing metabolic footprints from diet in human gut microbial cometabolism and has contributed to white papers and Evidence Reports informing science policy on the topic.
Denise Morais da Fonseca, Ph.D.
Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases
National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
National Institutes of Health
I obtained my Ph.D. in 2010 from the University of São Paulo - Brazil on the regulation of the immune response following immunotherapy in airway allergic inflammation. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of São Paulo on immune regulation during intestinal parasitic infections, I joined the Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases - National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 2012 as post-doctoral fellow. Since then, I have been working on understanding how acute infections at mucosal barrier sites, such as the gut, have long-term impacts on tissue function and homeostasis.
Dr. Laurel Lagenaur
Dr. Lagenaur received her doctorate in Microbiology and Immunology from Stanford University, and completed post-doctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco studying HIV-associated viral infections. She joined Osel in 1998 and was the principal investigator on Osel’s first research grant to develop MucoCept-HIV as a novel live biotherapeutic to prevent HIV transmission in women. She moved to Bethesda with her husband (who is an investigator in the NIH intramural program) and became a guest researcher at NIH.
Dr. Lagenaur is a molecular biologist with extensive experience in virology and bacteriology. Her research interests are in modulating the vaginal microbiome to improve Women’s Health and to prevent HIV.
Suchitra Hourigan, MD
Pediatric Gastroenterologist, Pediatric Specialists of Virginia
Director of Microbiome Research, Inova Translational Medicine Institute Director of Pediatric Research, INOVA
Assistant Professor, Adjunct, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Suchitra Hourigan, MD, is a Pediatric Gastroenterologist at Pediatric Specialists of Virginia, and an Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Her research is in the role of Clostridium difficile colonization and infection in inflammatory bowel disease, fecal microbiota transplantation in children and the developing intestinal microbiome of full term and preterm infants and associated health outcomes. She leads current microbiome studies at the Inova Translational Medicine Institute.
Winston Kuo DMSc
COO
IES Diagnostics
Winston Kuo is the founder of Harvard Medical School’s Laboratory for Innovative Translational Technologies, which was an integral part of the Clinical and Translational Science Award program, Dr. Kuo has founded and supported many programs that spur biomedical research.
He initiated and participated with the FDA in a large-scale comprehensive study evaluating the clinical utility of gene expression technologies, published in Nature Biotechnology (July 2006). He sits on the NIH/SBIR grant review study section and is a peer reviewer for the Qatar National Research Fund.
Dr. Kuo's clinical and translational initiatives have expanded globally in developing countries such as Brazil, China, Mongolia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and South Africa, focusing upon accelerating understanding of mechanisms that affect human disease; catalyzing the identification and development of useful biomarkers; and speeding the development of therapeutics in patients. Dr. Kuo has also instructed in the Innovation for Economic Development program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Dr. Kuo is a founder and Trustee of the Otto Heinrich Warburg Cancer Research Foundation.
He sits on the editorial boards of multiple peer reviewed journals, and is Editor-in Chief of the Journal of Circulating Biomarkers and NanoBioMedicine (both of which he founded). He has consulted with the NIH on interdisciplinary outreach, and sits on a number business and nonprofit Scientific Advisory Boards, including the BioPharma Research Council.
He received is Doctor of Medical Sciences (DMSc), Oral and Computational Biology from Harvard Medical School.
Juliette C. Madan, MD, MS
Associate Professor Pediatrics
Division of Neonatology
Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center
Dr. Juliette Madan is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine and a physician-scientist in the division of neonatology. She is a translational researcher in the Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Center at Dartmouth, where she leads one section of the large epidemiological study of 1,500 mother-baby dyads with a focus on environmental exposures, the neonatal microbiome, and their relationship to health and disease. Dr. Madan’s research on the neonatal microbiome continues in high-risk populations including premature infants, infants and young children with CF, with work on identifying nutritional or probiotic regimens that might alter disease progression and promote health.
Camilia R. Martin, M.D., M.S.
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Harvard Medical School
The Establishment of the Early Microbiome in Neonates:
Determinants, Risks, & Therapeutics
Though once thought to be a sterile environment, the in-utero environment is exposed to the maternal microbiome which may subsequently determine the timing of labor and early fetal colonization.
After birth the diet, environment, and medication exposures further direct the microbiome defining patterns that influence the balance between health and disease. In the preterm infant, this includes necrotizing enterocolitis, lung disease and sepsis. In later infancy and childhood the microbiome has been linked to asthma, celiac disease, diabetes, and obesity.
Early strategies in manipulating the microbiome have the potential to optimize immune ontogeny in the preterm infant residing in a high-risk environment and reduce the likelihood of acute and long-term morbidities.
Dr. Martin will address these concepts, as well as the role of the microbiome/organisms in labor and risk of premature delivery, formula vs breast milk , h2 blockers and antibiotics, infant colonization patterns, and the linkage of the microbiome to asthma, celiac disease, diabetes, and obesity.
Amanda Prince, Ph. D.
Postdoctoral Associate
Aagaard Lab
Dept. of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Dr. Amanda Prince is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Baylor College of Medicine under the mentorship of Dr. Kjersti Aagaard since 2013. She recently received a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award with a focus on the role of maternal diet on the offspring microbiome and is a member of the Center for Reproductive Medicine at Baylor. She graduated from Cornell College with a BA in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and received her PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Massachusetts Medical School with an emphasis on immunology and virology.
Howard Young, Ph.D.
Senior Investigator
Cancer and Inflammation Program
Center for Cancer Research
NCI at Frederick
Frederick, MD
Howard Young received his PhD from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Washington and did postdoctoral research under Drs. Edward Scolnick and Wade Parks at the National Cancer Institute. He joined the National Cancer Institute in 1983 and became Deputy Chief of the NCI Laboratory of Experimental Immunology in 2006. His research has focused on the analysis of cytokine gene expression and signaling with a special emphasis on the molecular characterization of the transcriptional and posttranscriptional regulation of Interferon-g in NK cells. Most recently, his laboratory has developed novel mouse models of lupus and aplastic anemia based on chronic expression of low levels of this important immunoregulatory molecule in the murine C57BL/6 genetic background and the Balb/c genetic background, respectively. He is also collaborating with a laboratory in Malaysia on the development of probiotic microorganisms as carriers for vaccine delivery systems.
Dr. Young is a former President of the International Society for Interferon and Cytokine Research and is a co-recipient (with Dr. Sidney Pestka) of the first Distinguished Service Award from the ISICR, is a two time recipient of the National Cancer Institute Director’s Award for Mentoring and is a recipient of the National Public Service Award from the American Society for Public Administration and the National Academy of Public Administration. He has also served as Chair of the Immunology Division of the American Society for Microbiology, Chair of the NIH Immunology Interest Group and Cytokine Interest Group and is a member of the American Academy of Microbiology.
