Microbiomes are the communities of microorganisms that live on or in people, plants, soil, oceans, and the atmosphere. Microbiomes maintain healthy function of these diverse ecosystems, influencing human health, climate change, food security, and other factors. Although new technologies have enabled exciting discoveries about the importance of microbiomes, scientists still lack the knowledge and tools to manage microbiomes in a manner that prevents dysfunction or restores healthy function.
WID researchers are engaged in diverse microbiome projects like linking gut microbes to Alzheimers Disease and gene expression, understanding the implications of microbial diversity, and discovering new antibiotics.
The UW-Campus Microbiome Portal is a component of WID’s Multi-Omics Hub.
A growing understanding of microbial communities and their influence on human health or crop productivity has led to the dream of changing these communities to produce benefits. New research at WID addresses this head-on.
WID seeks to add to its roster of excellent faculty with two new hires in emerging cutting-edge fields.
WID’s new hubs—Data Science, Multi-Omics, and Illuminating Discovery—represent a new path forward for collaborative research projects and fields.
The Wisconsin Institute for Discovery will launch a suite of hubs designed to bring together researchers from across campus and provide access to specialized tools and resources.
Writing in Nature Ecology & Evolution, WID’s Seyfullah Kotil and Kalin Vetsigian uncover an assembly mechanism that can lead to the spontaneous formation of microbial communities.
From On Wisconsin Magazine: UW-Madison students are joining the hunt for new antibiotics in their introductory biology coursework and becoming part of the Tiny Earth network, based at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery.
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: At a recent training event, teachers from Milwaukee Public Schools were joined by a teacher from New York Public Schools, a middle school teacher from Oak Creek, and even a researcher planning to bring the program back to his home university in India.
Data Science Hub Facilitator
Facilitating connections and training researchers in data science.
Ten highly innovative projects have been chosen to receive University of Wisconsin–Madison Data Science Initiative funding, including two led by Wisconsin Institute for Discovery investigators.
Professor
Co-lead of Data Science Hub (hub.datascience.wisc.edu). Research on systems genetics.
Tiny Earth’s 2018 symposium will feature experts on the front lines of the antimicrobial resistance crisis.
WID Director
Genetic and biochemical processes underlying interactions within plant and human microbiomes.
Genetic determinants of bacterial community stability and invasion
Madison Microbiome Hub Manager / Multi Omics Hub Coordinator
Campus resource to support researchers interested in tackling a broad spectrum of microbiome research
Comparative metabolomics; Epigenetics of therapy-resistant prostate cancer
Understanding diversity in microbial communities and their role in infectious disease; in particular, the genetic basis for stability of microbial communities, the role of a gut community as a source of opportunistic pathogens, and the soil microbial community as a source of new antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes.
Investigating how living organisms cooperate or compete in diverse and changing environments. Methods and perspectives are drawn from many fields, including ecology, evolution, molecular biology, physics, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, and computer science. The lab uses data-driven mechanistic and statistical models to predict when microbes or other organisms will persist or perish, with a broad goal of promoting human health through effective management of microbe-host interactions.
Associate Professor
Epigenetic regulation of plant traits and environmental adaptation.
Professor, Multi-Omics Leader
Epigenetic chromatin changes that regulate cell signaling and metabolism
Assistant Professor
Developing statistical methods and computational tools for high-throughput omics data.
The Multi-Omics Hub will focus on the use of big data about the genes, microorganisms, and metabolites to understand biological systems. WID’s expertise makes it an ideal home for the Epigenetics Initiative for the large campus community that studies the epigenome, and as such WID will organize meetings, seminars, mutli-PI …
