PHO Microbiology Rounds: Missing Gut Microbes and Where to Find Them

The human gut microbiome is a complex microbial ecosystem that plays increasingly recognized and important roles in human physiology and health. As we have come to recognize the benefits that harbouring a diverse microbial ecosystem offers our health, so too have we started to realize the harm that we have done to this delicate ecosystem over the last few generations, which seems to be related to the loss of key microbial species. Since we can’t look at gut microbiomes of generations past, it is difficult to know what exactly has been lost. One alternative is to look at the gut microbiomes of people who have lived their lives outside of the modern world. In this session Dr. Emma Allen-Vercoe will share work that aims to define and understand “missing microbes” by studying the gut microbiomes of hunter-gatherer people in the remote Venezuelan Amazon.

Intended audience: Public health professionals, specifically those interested or working within microbiology; individuals with some scientific background, for example, academics, science technicians, MDs, and researchers.

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Appreciate how the gut microbiome is a critical component of human health.
• Understand the particular lifestyle practices in the modern world contributing to microbiome loss.
• Recognize that the microbiomes of hunter-gatherer peoples represent the human ancestral microbiome.
• Appreciate the ethical issues surrounding research of hunter-gatherer microbiomes.