Friends with Benefits: Microbes, Diet & Me – Eric Alm, PhD and Tim Spector, MD
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Description
ON BEING HUMAN (series title)
Exploring the layers of the human experience
LEE AND NILE ALBRIGHT ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM
Friends with Benefits: Microbes, Diet & Me
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Eric Alm, PhD, Karl Van Tassell Career Development Associate Professor of Bioengineering at MIT, Associate Member of the Broad Institute, and Co-Director of the Center for Microbiome Informatics and Therapeutics; and Tim Spector, MD, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King’s College London, Honorable Consultant Physician at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospital, and author of The Diet Myth: The Real Science Behind What We Eat
Why is it that one person can eat a meal and gain weight and another eats exactly the same food and loses pounds? Genes are part of the answer, but the latest science shows another vital aspect that lies within us: microbes. This microbiome of 100 trillion “bugs” co-habit our bodies and influence our biology in myriad ways that scientists are beginning to understand.
Tim Spector leads the largest microbiome project in the United Kingdom, using genetic sequencing to study the gut bacteria of 5,000 twins, and founded the British Gut project in 2014. Eric Alm studies microbial ecology, how our microbes can improve human health, and how we can turn our “bugs” into drugs. Learn how your diet affects your microbes and your microbes affect your diet.
Funding provided by the Lee and Nile Albright Annual Symposium Fund. Additional funding provided by the Lowell Institute.
