“ Microbiome research can change the way we practice
T cell responses. These mice displayed tumor control comparable to those who received the full mixture. The effect was long-lasting. TAC mice exposed to tumors as late as six weeks after the Bifidobacterium transfer were still able to mount a robust immune response. In essence, Gajewski and his team had discovered a way to improve an already promising treatment by recruiting an unexpected ally into the fight. “The field has recently recognized close connections between the gut microbiome and the immune system,” Gajewski said. “This finding provides a novel way to exploit that connection, to improve immunotherapy by selectively modulating intestinal bacteria.” One role of the Microbiome Center is to help scientists quickly translate their findings to private and clinical sectors. Gajewski serves as a model for how to translate early-stage research. He worked closely with the Technology Commercialization and Licensing group (formerly UChicagoTech) at the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation to develop his intellectual property and execute a license with Evelo Biosciences, which will work with him to further develop microbiome-based cancer immunotherapy approaches toward patient benefit.
medicine, improve
An ecosystem of research
our productivity
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and even restore the health of damaged ecosystems.” Jack Gilbert, PhD
o microbiologists, the idea that there is a vast world of microbes out there, living in just about any nook and cranny you can think of, isn’t all that earth-shattering. “If there is a carbon source out there, there is an organism that’s going to figure out a way to make a
living off it,” said Dionysios Antonopoulos, PhD, a microbial systems biologist at Argonne and assistant professor of medicine at UChicago. He started his career studying the microbiology of ruminant digestive systems — i.e., cow guts — and has since moved on to studying the broader ecosystems these microbes inhabit and the give and take with resources that makes those communities stable. To him, the interesting leap is when scientists start to take what they’ve learned about those other systems, from cow guts to waterways to man-made buildings, and apply it to human health. “We’re not really in complete control of our bodies; these millions and millions of other entities are influencing the way our bodies function,” he said. “It’s that sort of work that’s sort of captured the imagination.” For Gilbert, the secret to maintaining that momentum lies in breaking down barriers between different disciplines to create an ecosystem of shared research, so that a postdoc studying Alzheimer’s disease — such as Minter — may find himself learning sampling techniques from a marine biologist. “We want to be able to break down boundaries between disciplines and institutions so that they are essentially nonexistent,” Gilbert said. “Yes, individual institutes have their own research agendas. But when people talk about the Microbiome Center, they won’t say the Microbiome Center at UChicago or the Microbiome Center at Argonne. They will just say the Microbiome Center.” John Easton and Stephen Phillips contributed to this story.
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Faculty director of the Microbiome Center, a joint effort by the University of Chicago, the Marine Biological Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory
PHOTO BY NANCY WONG
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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION