The Sex and Gender in Health and Disease (SGHD) Scientific Interest Group (SIG) will host a virtual talk on the importance of human microbiota to health and disease from Rashmi Sinha, Ph.D., of the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

Increasingly, clinicians and researchers appreciate the importance of the human microbiota to health and disease. A complex microbial ecosystem colonizes the human gastrointestinal system and has been associated with common health disorders, such as obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, colorectal cancer, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, and inflammatory bowel disease. To date, most human microbiome research has involved small cross-sectional studies that use convenience samplings of select populations, and findings have been difficult to reproduce across investigations. Dr. Sinha will discuss the development of standardized methods for microbiome research and how they enable large prospective human studies to investigate the role of the microbiome in health and disease reproducibly.

Videocast