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CHAT LIVE NOW with Microbial Expert. Bugs Inside of Us.

Judith

Crohnsforum Science Advisor
Our bodies, inside and out, are teeming with trillions of microbes. Most of them are our friends, helping us to digest food, strengthening our immune systems, and keeping dangerous enemy pathogens from invading our tissues and organs. Evidence is building that this resident community of microbes, called the microbiome, plays a major role in health and disease. Disorders as diverse as cancer, obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis, asthma, and possibly even autism may be influenced by the microbiome when its normal composition is thrown off balance. How similar are the microbial communities of different people? How are scientists establishing links between microbes and health? And what might be done to alter the microbiome to prevent disease?

Join us for a live chat at 3 p.m. EDT on Thursday, 7 June, on this page. You can leave your questions in the comment box below before the chat starts.

http://t.co/xOBwn9pA
 

Judith

Crohnsforum Science Advisor
Elizabeth Pennisi:
Hi. Welcome to this afternoon’s Live Chat. Our twitter connection is #sciencelive. Today we’re talking about the trillions of microbes that live in and on our bodies. Collectively known as the human microbiome, these “bugs” are usually our friends, helping us to digest food, strengthening our immune systems, and keeping dangerous enemy pathogens from invading our tissues and organs. Researchers are trying to learn how changes in this community of microbes can lead to disease.
With us today is Lora Hooper, an associate professor of immunology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Her group studies how friendly bacteria shape intestinal immunity in the gut and how the immune system prevents these bacteria from invading host tissues and causing disease.
Our second guest is George Weinstock, associate director of The Genome Institute at Washington University in St. Louis. He is one of the principal investigators in the NIH Human Microbiome Project and leads numerous other metagenomics projects that study human disease.
Thanks for joining us, George and Lora. I’d like to start off with a question. How similar is my microbiome to your microbiomes?
 

rygon

Moderator
oops sorry i deleted it as i saw your link working again (thought i'd been too hasty lol)
 

Judith

Crohnsforum Science Advisor
Sorry I posted it so late. They just sent the email today and I only saw it 4 minutes before it started. Yikes!

The posts for their chat are kind of slow though.

I asked a Crohn's question. Hopefully they will get to it. But I dont know....
 
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