We are constantly interacting with a microbial universe that mostly goes unseen. What do we find at the microscopic level and what are the implications for human health? Join us Monday evening for talks from Dr. Elizabeth Hénaff (Weill Cornell Medicine) who was part of the team that mapped the DNA of the NYC subway system, and gastroenterologist Dr. Ari Grinspan (Mount Sinai), a pioneer of fecal transplants to treat gut infections.
Elizabeth Hénaff - Dystopic solutions: hacking into the genetic heritage of the Gowanus Canal, Brooklyn's hippest SuperFund
The environmental microbiome manifests the continuum between organism and environment, and as such, is a powerful tool of study and mode of intervention with potential direct applications in engineered landscapes. Now that high-throughput DNA sequencing gives us a quantitative metric for the environmental microbiome, how do we design to optimize it?
Ari Grinspan - Shit Happens...to be the Next Big Thing in Medicine
Who would have thought that one person's excrement would be another's magic elixir? Fecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT) is the process of transferring a healthy person's fecal matter to a sick person to treat a disease. Over the past 5 years, FMT has been shown to be the most effective treatment for a specific intestinal infection called Clostridium difficile. Now widely accepted as the treatment of choice for this condition, we are now exploring the use of FMT in other areas of medicine.