By Peter L. Goering, Scientific Program Committee Chair
The Frontiers for Toxicology Symposium is designed to focus on a cutting-edge subject that impacts basic and applied toxicology research. The topic for 2015 is “Bugs to Drugs: The Microbiome in Human Health, Disease, and Therapeutics,” which will be held on Tuesday, March 24, 9:00 am–12:00 noon. The human microbiome represents a symbiotic ecosystem that plays a key role in host metabolism and physiology, and is incredibly diverse even between healthy individuals.
Dysfunctional microbiomes in various host environments are being increasingly recognized in the pathogenesis of altered metabolic states and diseases, such as metabolic syndrome, obesity, diabetes, certain autoimmune disorders, atherosclerosis, autism, asthma, and allergies. In particular, the gut microbiome plays a role in metabolism and absorption of drugs, toxicants, environmental chemicals, and dietary components; these exposures also alter the microbiota species composition and microbiome.
Breakthroughs in analytical methods and tools have accelerated the understanding of the roles of the microbiome in human health and disease. Metagenomics represents a powerful approach to define the microbiota species composition in a given ecosystem through detection of their genes and gene products, and the role of altered microbiomes in disease. Vast microbiota diversity exists within and between humans, each population producing a large array of their own metabolites and products, which contributes to regulating the overall host biology within this symbiotic relationship. Metabolic profiling strategies, including new mass spectrometric and bioinformatics techniques, are being developed to analyze the microbial metabolome to generate chemical maps that describe the molecular connections and communications between host cells and microbes. Understanding microbiome-metabolome-host interactions will drive the identification of novel drug targets and development of new therapeutic interventions for many diseases.
Rapid advances linking microbiota, the microbiome, and metabolome and their role in health and disease represent an important frontier from a toxicological perspective. The goal of this session is to feature eminent scientists who have made important contributions and advances to current knowledge of the microbiome. Integrated areas that will be explored include metagenomic characterization of microbiomes in human and environmental ecosystems, changes in the microbiome from birth to death and important applications to forensics, the molecular characterization of the microbiome and the challenges of linking large amounts of genome sequencing and mass spectrometric data, and the metabolic cross-talk between the host and the symbiotic microbiome and its influence on disease and therapeutic, personalized medicine interventions.
Speakers in this session include Mark D. Adams, J. Craig Venter Institute, San Diego, California; Rob Knight, University of California San Diego, San Diego, California; Pieter C. Dorrestein, University of California San Diego, San Diego, California; and Jeremy K. Nicholson, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.