Speaker:
Title:
Targeted Perturbations Expand Ecosystem Function in the Mammalian Gut Microbiota
Abstract:
Animal guts harbor the densest microbial ecosystems on the
planet, and these ecosystems orchestrate the health of their host.
Disruptions of this ecosystem following pathogen infection lead to remodeling
of this community. The only microbial therapy in such cases, fecal microbiota
transplant, remains ill-defined and difficult to regulate. Here, I
demonstrate a targeted approach to remodeling ecosystems in healthy
individuals. This work offers a route for development of defined microbial
therapeutics in a range of clinical indications.
Speaker:
Title:
Analysis of a Selenium Chemoprevention Clinical Trial using a Multi-level Modeling Approach
Abstract:
Randomized controlled clinical trials are the gold standard
for determining the effectiveness of medical and nutritional interventions.
Prior information from metabolic, epidemiologic, and clinical studies inform
clinical judgment as to the timeliness and design of clinical trials.
Combining these distinct levels of information is an uncertain process and
the uncertainty in the information available affects clinical trial outcomes
probabilities. Large clinical trials sometimes produce undesirable and
unanticipated results. We demonstrate a multi-level modeling framework that
applies information theory to propagate uncertainty at the molecular
metabolic level to assess its impacts on clinical trial outcomes and thereby
identify critical information needs and clinical trial design options that
may mitigate critical uncertainties. The metabolic entity addressed is
selenium as a prostate cancer preventive agent.