The rockefeller university

Event Details

Type

Friday Lecture Series

Speaker(s)

Julie Segre, Ph.D., senior investigator, microbial genomics section, chief, translational and functional genomics branch, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health

Speaker bio(s)

Humans are home to about 100 trillion bacteria, fungi, and viruses, collectively known as your microbiome. van Leeuwenhoek was the first to visualize microbes under a microscope over 400 years ago. Now the question is: Can a DNA-sequencing instrument be used as an equally powerful microscope to elucidate the microbial communities that reside in and on our bodies? DNA sequencing technology, developed to empower the human genome project, enables us to sequence a fully complete bacterial genome in hours and explore the myriad culturable and unculturable microbial communities at high resolution.

 

Dr. Segre's work explores the varied topography of human skin to study how the body's microenvironments influence the functional and taxonomic composition of microbial communities. Her laboratory performed high throughput genomic sequencing surveys to investigate the topographical and temporal complexity of skin microbial communities from 20 skin sites in healthy adults to identify the hundreds of bacteria and fungi that colonize distinct skin niches. Significant differences were observed in the bacterial species predominating skin sites, shaped by microenvironments: sebaceous, moist, and dry. Dr. Segre's laboratory identified strain-level variation of dominant species as heterogeneous and multiphyletic, and largely stable over time. This work, which defines the dual influence of biogeography and individuality on microbial composition and function, is foundational for human disease studies investigating inter-kingdom interactions, metabolic changes, and strain tracking.

 

Research in Dr. Segre’s laboratory focuses on microbial genomics, and she investigates both hospital pathogens and the diversity of commensal skin organisms. Her work integrates DNA sequence technology, algorithm development, and diagnostic clinical microbiology. Dr. Segre’s research has defined the normal human skin bacterial and fungal communities, enabling studies of alterations associated with pediatric atopic dermatitis and primary immunodeficiency.

 

Dr. Segre received her Ph.D. in genetics from MIT in 1996. She did her postdoctoral work in skin biology with Elaine Fuchs at the University of Chicago. In 2000, she joined NHGRI/NIH as a new investigator and received tenure in 2007. She is the recipient of several awards, including the 2013 Service to America Medal, which she received with NIH Clinical Center epidemiologist Tara Palmore for deploying genomic sequencing to guide hospital outbreak containment. She was elected to the American Academy of Microbiology in 2015.

Open to

Public

Host

Luciano Marraffini, Ph.D.

Reception

Refreshments, 3:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m., Abby Lounge

Contact

Linda Hanssler

Phone

(212) 327-7714

Sponsor

Linda Hanssler
(212) 327-7714
lhanssler@rockefeller.edu

Readings

http://librarynews.rockefeller.edu/?p=3990