Dr. Jack Gilbert, Environmental Microbiologist at Argonne National Laboratory and Associate Professor in the University of Chicagoâs Department of Ecology and Evolution, will discuss the microbial life on the human body that outnumber our cells 10 to 1. Gilbert â whose work has recently been covered by TIME, Newsweek, and National Geographic â will explore this brave new world, examining some examples of how your microbial world influences your health and highlighting the ways in which your lifestyle, diet and medical treatment can influence your microbiome. He will also discuss how bacteria could help combat Alzheimerâs, autism and cancer. (program)
Eating a big breakfast and having a dog will change your gut bacteria; help you loose weight and reduce allergies. The absence or presence of a single type of gut bacteria can determine fatness or thinness with the same dietary intake. Dr. Gilbert's enthusiastic presentation follows a short promotional film on the research he and others at Argonne National Lab are conducting that portends revolutionary changes for health care and birthing based on the growing knowledge of the evolutionary relationship between bacteria and us, and new technology that can rapidly sequence microbes smaller that one micron. Could it be we are the agents of our bacteria whose mass weigh about the same as the brain? Urban dwellers exist in a drastically reduced microbial environment. Childhood asthma, allergies and obesity are on the rise, in spite of or perhaps due to, the war on microbes. The Amish experience almost no asthma or allergies. Gilbert is researching why, but postulates that it is the rich interaction that their children have with the complex microbiome of the farms. Gilbert's research yields revelations about the significance of bacteria in our own lives and that certain bacteria effect control over behavior. A resourceful and creative scientist, he went to crowd funding to start a large population genomic mapping project that the NIH was too stodgy to see the merit of. You will hear about it in the presentation. He also discusses the role bacteria play in preventing the immune system from attacking its own host as happens with colitis and tests with mice that show the addition of one type of bacteria reversing the disease. In the Q&A he explained how the tuberculous bacillus tricks the immune system into killing off the beneficial bacteria that would normally prevent it from multiplying.
International House Global Voices Lecture Series, Argonne National Laboratory, and the Office of the Vice President for Research and for National Laboratories at UChicago.
Audio from 0:6:25 - 0:11:43 distorted but clean after.
Promotional video that precedes Gilbert's talk : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRW88bKWkrM
Not as up to date presentation but with visuals referred to in this audio recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=30&v=aksMWePT6XQ
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