If you were to eat dinner with Professor Ben Wolfe, chances are you would find some delicious fermented foods on the table: creamy camembert cheese, salami, or perhaps a bowl of miso soup—chosen not just for their taste, but for their microbes. A professor in the Department of Biology at Tufts, Ben Wolfe researches the microbial communities found in food. “If you go to the soil outside this building or you look in our guts or deep in the ocean, [you’ll find] different microbes living in different parts of our planet. The challenge is that most of those microbial communities are really complex,” he explained. “So [my lab] is using simple microbial systems [in food] to understand how microbial communities work. We can’t necessarily translate everything from a piece of cheese to the rest of the world, but there are basic principles that we’re searching for and starting to find.” In addition to cheese, his lab is home to fermented vegetables, salami, and kombucha. The
gastronomic appeal of his chosen research subject is no coincidence. A fermented food fanatic, Professor Wolfe was drawn to this research because it combines the area of science he is passionate about—microbes and fungi—with food, something that relates directly to people’s everyday lives. It’s hard not to get excited while listening to Professor Wolfe talk. He employs assembly line metaphors and Mario Kart references to explain science and speaks about microbes with an almost fatherly tone of approval and fascination. He wants others to share in this fascination. “One goal is really teaching people about microbes,” he said. “You hear about them in the news as ‘Deadly killers! Toxic! Ebola! Salmonella! E. coli!’ But most microbes are benign or beneficial to us. People don’t think about all of the wonderful things microbes [do].” By working directly with food producers, teaching workshops, and writing about microbes for websites and magazines, he is able to share his research with an audience outside of the scientific community.
This coming fall, Professor Wolfe will teach a course on the microbiology of food. “We call it a farm-to-gut journey into the microbial world,” he told me. The course is designed to be accessible for all students, regardless of major. “It’s a really fun course for me, because I can connect microbiology to pretty much anything: economics, ethics, philosophy, history,” he said, adding excitedly, “And it’s food! We can do demos. We’ll bring in chefs. We’re going to have Skype conversations with people all over the world dealing with microbes in their food systems.” In addition to its implications for medicine, science, and food production, one perk of his research on microbial communities in food is that the research itself is never bland. The current microbial conundrum that Professor Wolfe and his seven undergraduate researchers are tackling in the lab? “We call it the ‘purple mystery cheese,’” Professor Wolfe said. —ABBY MCFEE ’17
BENJAMIN WOLFE ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY
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PHOTO BY JARED LEEDS
Professor Wolfe researches microbial communities in food. In addition to his research publications, he contributes frequently to food magazines, co-writes an online series for Boston Magazine called “Chefology,” and curates MicrobialFoods.org.