Human Skin Microbiome: Finding Friends Amongst the Foes
Event Details
- Type
- Friday Lecture Series
- Speaker(s)
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Julie Segre, Ph.D., director, Life Sciences Institute, University of Michigan
- Speaker bio(s)
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The varied topography of human skin offers a unique opportunity to study how the body’s microenvironments influence the functional and taxonomic composition of microbial communities. However, the paucity of commensal microbial genomes has limited our ability to comprehensively interpret the structure and function of these communities. Dr. Segre's group combined extensive culturing and the development of computational pipelines to create metagenomic assembled genomes to elucidate novel constituents, structure and functions of the human skin microbiome.
Built upon this genomic framework, they explore global diversity of skin microbiomes, including the emerging fungal pathogen Trichophyton concentricum amongst the Orang Asli indigenous people of Malaysia; the spread of multi-drug resistant including C. auris and ESKAPE pathogens amongst residents in long term care facility; and the persistence of bacterial commensal strains from early childhood with implications for infection susceptibility and therapeutic modulation.
Julie Segre, Ph.D. is an NIH Distinguished Investigator at the National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH Intramural Research Program. Her research focuses on the human microbiome, investigating both the transmission of hospital pathogens and the diversity of commensal skin organisms, including bacteria, fungi and viruses. Segre’s research integrates genomic sequencing innovation, algorithm development and clinical studies to explore the diversity of microbes in and on humans in health and disease. She is a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine.
- Open to
- Tri-Institutional