Seminar by Kevin Kohl

Assistant Professor Kevin Kohl, from the University of Pittsburgh, will be visiting us on Tuesday May the 30th at 11am. He has kindly accepted to give a talk about some of the fantastic research they are conducting at his lab. Read about his lab here. 

Comparative approaches for studying development of the gut microbiome 

Research Overview - Work in the Kohl Lab focuses on merging and pushing both the fields of physiological ecology and host-microbe interactions forward. Our work largely focuses on aspects of digestion and nutrition, as it is through these processes that animals acquire the energy and nutrients that they require to survive and reproduce. Specifically, we advance these fields by (i) increasing understanding of the functional implications of host-microbe relationships on animal physiology, ecology, and evolution; and (ii) uncovering the mechanistic bases for these interactions. The lab utilizes comparative, experimental, and computational approaches to investigate microbe-dependent physiological functions at various levels of biological organization (genes to behavior) and in diverse systems spanning birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and fish.

Presentation Abstract - There is interest in the development of targeted interventions and microbiome engineering techniques for humans, but the reality of such tools will require knowledge of the forces that sculpt the structure of these communities, especially in early life – an understanding that we currently lack. Gaining this understanding is difficult, given the hierarchical nature of the microbiome. The gut microbiome itself is an ecological community of many species, embedded within the physiological context of a host that exerts its own pressures on this community. Moreover, this host itself is nested within an complex ecosystem of social interactions and abiotic factors that can influence host-microbe interactions. The next difficulty will be disentangling the relative contribution of various factors, such host genetic control, microbe-microbe interactions and feedback interactions (such as a microbe modifying the immune system and preventing a subsequent microbe from entering the system). Here, I will present two comparative projects aimed at understanding factors that influence the microbiome in early life. Project 1 uses Xenopus tadpoles to understand how social interactions and development structure the gut microbiome. Project 2 uses several species of Peromyscus mice to understand relationships between host evolutionary history and the gut microbiome. Together, this work will enhance our understanding of the major forces that dictate assemble and structure of the gut microbiome in early life, thereby providing insight into which areas could be the most promising for targeted manipulations of the microbiome.