We share an intimate mutual relationship with the microbes in our gut, which we call gut microbiome. It helps us digest and absorb nutrients from our food, and also support our immune system to develop and function properly. Despite considerable progress in our understanding of... click to read more

The discovery of antibiotics made many bacterial infections easily curable. However, today the world is facing a 'post-antibiotic era' crisis as bacteria are rapidly evolving new ways to resist antibiotics. Yearly, 700, 000 deaths are caused by bacterial infections that are untreatable with currently available... click to read more

Microbes in the human gut play essential roles in maintaining human health. Gut microbes carry out many of these roles using a large toolkit of enzymes that can metabolize and transform larger, complex compounds into smaller compounds. Microbial enzymes breakdown many compounds from the human... click to read more

Modern scientific equipment has revolutionized the study of hidden life. Advances in genetic sequencing allow us to discover mysterious worlds of diverse microbes in Earth's harshest environments or within our bodies. Life also hides from us through time. Studying long-extinct creatures can be challenging. We must... click to read more

In the 1980s it was discovered that some relatives of the bacterium Burkholderia cepacia (formerly Pseudomonas cepacia) were able to form close relationships with plant roots, and also make a range of antimicrobials capable of killing plant pathogens. Several US pesticide companies exploited this bacterium... click to read more