The MicrobiomeResearchX (MRX) Podcast

Today’s guest is Djenet Bousbaine from Stanford University, the 2025 Grand Prize winner of the NOSTER & Science Microbiome Prize . Her essay, “Skin microbiota: the vaccine we were already wearing,” shows how the microbes living on our skin quietly train our immune system. And now, by working with these microbes, her team is pointing us towards the possibility of safe, needle-free vaccines. Dje...

Today’s guest is Ayele Argaw-Denboba from the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg, Germany , and one of the 2025 Prize Winners of the NOSTER & Science Microbiome Prize . is essay, “The gut microbiome–germline axis,” shows that disturbances in a father’s gut microbes can alter sperm and pass on health risks to the next generation — but restoring the microbiome can...

Today’s guest is Mohammad Arifuzzaman from the Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University , and one of the 2025 Prize Winners of the NOSTER & Science Microbiome Prize . His essay, “Illuminating Microbial Dark Matter,” reveals how changes in diet can bring to light previously unknown molecules made by gut microbes. These hidden microbial products act like messengers, qui...

Our guest today is Kazuki Nagashima at Stanford University, who is the grand prize winner of the 2023 NOSTER & Science Microbiome Prize for his essay entitled "Blockbuster T cells in the gut: A high-resolution view of immune modulation by the gut microbiome is presented.”   Details about the prize-winning essay www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq2335 Kazuki Nagashima Blockbuster T cel...

Our guest today is Brittany Needham at Indiana University who is a finalist of the 2024 NOSTER & Science Microbiome Prize for his essay entitled " Exposed wires: A microbial metabolite influences myelination in the brain.”   Details about the prize-winning essay www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq2344 Brittany Needham  Exposed wires: A microbial metabolite influences myelination in th...

Our guest today is Lina Yao at Harvard Medical School who is a finalist of the 2024 NOSTER & Science Microbiome Prize for his essay entitled " Breaking boundaries: Bacteria act as architects of host T cell modulators using bile acids.”   Details about the prize-winning essay www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq2341 Lina Yao  Breaking boundaries: Bacteria act as architects of host T cel...

Our guest today is Sara Clasen of the Max Planck Institute for Biology in Tübingen, Germany, who is the recipient of the 2023 NOSTER & Science Microbiome Grand Prize for her essay entitled, “The sound of silence”.  Details about the prize-winning essay https://www.science.org/content/page/2023-noster-science-prize-winners Essay: The sound of silence Science, 381, 6653, pp. 37-38,  2023 DOI: 10...

Our guest today is Christopher Stewart of the Translational and Clinical Research Institute at Newcastle University, who is a finalist of the 2023 NOSTER & Science Microbiome Prize for his essay entitled "Diet-microbe-host interaction in early life: breastmilk bioactives are important to infant microbiome.”   Details about the prize-winning essay https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scienc...

Our guest today is Christoph A. Thaiss the Microbiology Department of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, who is a finalist of the 2023 NOSTER & Science Microbiome Prize for his essay entitled "A microbiome exercise: gut-brain connections drive the motivation to work out.”   Details about the prize-winning essay https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ad...

Our guest today is Jennifer Hampton Hill, University of Utah is the recipient of the 2022 NOSTER & Science Microbiome Grand Prize for her work that “revealed that the resident microbiome is a promising source of previously undiscovered modulators of host β cells.” Links to details about the prize-winning essay https://www.science.org/content/page/2022-noster-science-prize-winners Essay: From b...

Our guest today is Eran Blacher, who is currently a senior postdoctoral fellow at Stanford School of Medicine studying the immune system-gut-brain axis in ageing and neurological disorders.  Eran is the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 NOSTER & Science Microbiome Prize for his essay, “Can microbes combat neurodegeneration?” based on his research on the relationship between the microbiome and neu...

Our guest today is Maria Zimmermann-Kogadeeva, who started her lab in the Genome Biology Unit at EMBL Heidelberg in 2021. Maria is a finalist of the 2021 NOSTER & Science Microbiome Prize for her essay, "Quantifying host-microbiota interactions” based on her research on the adaptation and consequences of microbes to their surroundings in hosts. Links to details about the prize-winning ess...

Our guest today is Erez Baruch, who recently started an internal medicine residency in a research (Physician-Scientist) track to medical oncology. Internal medicine training is conducted at the McGovern Medical School in Houston, Texas. Erez is a finalist of the 2021 NOSTER & Science Microbiome Prize for his essay, "Microbiota modulation to fight cancer”, based on his research on “mechani...

Our guest today is Mariana Byndloss, an Assistant Professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, in Nashville, Tennessee.  Mariana was one of the two finalists in the 2020 first annual NOSTER & Science Microbiome Prize for her work on “Microbial management”.  Links to details about the prize-winning essays can be found on the MicrobiomeResearchX we...

Our guest today is Chun-Jun Guo, an assistant professor at the Jill Roberts Institute for Research in Inflammatory Bowel Disease at Weill Cornell Medicine, New York.  CJ was one of the two finalists in the 2020 first annual NOSTER & Science Microbiome Prize for his work on “Modulating microbiome metabolites in vivo”.  Links to details about prize-winning essay and his research can be found on...

Our guest today is Oliver Harrison, the 2020 winner of the first annual NOSTER & Science Microbiome Prize for his work on “how skin microbes interact with the immune system to aid wound healing”. Oliver is a Principal Investigator at Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason (BRI), in Seattle. https://www.benaroyaresearch.org/what-is-bri/scientists-labs/scientists/oliver-harrison-phd Links...