Researchers in the Microbiology and Molecular Genetics department work on several different aspects of digestive disorders. These include the development of more sensitive DNA sequencing approaches and computational platforms to analyze the microbiome and its micro-environments in healthy vs. diseased subjects; studies on the effectiveness of probiotics in managing Salmonella infections; how a high fat diet affects circadian rhythms, which are linked to cellular metabolism and lead to changes in the liver that contribute to diabetes and obesity, and how dysregulation of key signalling pathways in intestinal stem cells leads to colon cancer. Their continued success in these areas will be the key to unlocking new therapies and benefiting patients for years to come.
www.microbiology.uci.edu