Microbes and Health

Organized by Jeffrey Gordon and Todd Klaenhammer

Meeting Overview
Microbes and Health was held at the Beckman Center in Irvine, CA on November 2-3, 2009.  This colloquium focused on characterization of the foundations of host-microbial symbioses, primarily in the human.   Given the remarkable growth of the field of metagenomics, and the astonishing proliferation of human microbiome initiatives in many nations, it was timely to convene a colloquium that examined the assembly, composition, functions and dynamic operations of body habitat-associated microbial communities.  The microbiota plays many important roles in maintaining health and in promoting various diseases and this colloquium discussed the experimental and computational approaches that are being, and need to be, deployed to comprehensively characterize our microbiome in health and disease, and interventional strategies that may be useful for its deliberate manipulation.

This meeting was co-sponsored by the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) and was followed by their Annual meeting on November 4-5. 

Sackler Microbes and Health Colloquium gratefully acknowledges the support of our partners who are sponsoring speaker travel and student travel awards:  Cargill, Danisco, Mead Johnson, Nestlé, Pfizer, or & Gamble, Unilever, Wyeth Nutrition, and Yakult USA, Inc.

View Program Agenda and Speaker List