Each of us carries intestinal gardens, where microbes process food for our own consumption. We evolved to benefit from this, but as our guests are selfish single-cell creatures, tense diplomacy was always needed. Since these bacterial communities in our gut play surprisingly large roles in... click to read more

Ours is a world dominated by microbes. Diverse microbial communities colonize just about any available space, even deep within our bodies' cavities. Remarkably, every human being carries as many bacterial as human cells, leading us to question the very meaning of what constitutes a human.... click to read more

The fungal skin disease "Chytridiomycosis" is an important cause for amphibian diversity loss. This particular disease is emblematic for human mediated spread of pathogens from their native into new ranges, with the potential to extirpate the newly invaded host populations. The Asian chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium... click to read more

Bacteria are an integral part of human life. These organisms are on your skin, in your mouth, your ears, and your gut. After birth, a diverse population is acquired by the age of three and remarkably the population is quite similar and just as diverse... click to read more

Diabetes, infertility, cancer, allergies, Alzheimer's disease - the key to one day preventing or even curing such afflictions and diseases (both infectious and genetically driven) may be locked in our own genetic code and the code of microorganisms that inhabit our bodies. Genomics, the study... click to read more