Research Description

Healthy humans are colonized by 500-1,000 different species of microbes, with wide-ranging effects on our physiology. Even though we can now culture many of these microbes, we still lack insight into the function and regulation of their genes. This limits our ability to even form hypotheses about how these microbes affect the host. The Bradley Labs long-term aim is to understand our microbiota (especially the gut and oral microbiomes) as well as we currently understand model microbes, using both computational and high-throughput experimental tools. Such an understanding will allow us to interpret and eventually to modulate human microbiomes more precisely.