Microbiome science brings together the biology of microorganisms, the quality of laboratory measurements, and the interpretation of research. Our multidisciplinary team draws on experience across these connected fields.
These professional backgrounds inform how we examine microorganisms, assess biological measurements, and interpret scientific evidence.
Bacteriologists study bacteria: their growth, metabolism, properties, and interactions with their surroundings and hosts. Their work may involve identifying organisms, studying cultures, and investigating bacterial behavior.
What this contributes: a foundation for interpreting microbial communities, fermentation, bacterial metabolites, and antimicrobial resistance. It helps us examine what a proposed mechanism means biologically and what evidence supports it.
Medical Laboratory Scientists work with biological specimens and laboratory testing. Their training spans areas such as microbiology, chemistry, hematology, immunology, and molecular biology, including the quality and limitations of testing methods.
What this contributes: an understanding of how a measurement is produced, how specimen collection and methods affect results, and what a finding can reasonably establish. This perspective supports careful interpretation of laboratory evidence used in research.
MLS names the profession. Credentials such as MLS(ASCP) are held by individual professionals; specific team credentials are described in their profiles.
Research expertise connects a scientific question with an appropriate study design, analysis, and interpretation. Quantitative methods help assess patterns, variation, uncertainty, and the strength of a result.
What this contributes: evaluating study populations, sample sizes, methods, and conflicting findings. We distinguish association from causation and consider whether evidence from laboratory or animal models supports a conclusion about people.
Research support helps organize literature searches, screening records, source information, and references. These tasks make the evidence behind a publication easier to trace and review.
What this contributes: a documented foundation for scientific assessment. Researchers retain responsibility for interpretation, substantive conclusions, and review before publication.
The team’s training and professional experience extend across the microorganisms themselves, the host, and the populations in which health outcomes are studied.
Bacteriology, bacterial physiology, mycology, virology, parasitology, and antimicrobial resistance.
Immunology, genetics, biochemistry, physiology, and infectious diseases.
Public health, epidemiology, biostatistics, and research methodology.
These areas describe professional expertise within the team. We bring these perspectives to evidence synthesis, interdisciplinary interpretation, and scientific education. Professional laboratory experience informs how we evaluate methods, measurements, and biological explanations.
Explore the people who bring these disciplines together, the institute’s scientific approach, and our research publication, The Weekly Biome.
Professional role references