Exploring Human Host-Microbiome Interactions in Health and Disease

This new Wellcome Trust Scientific Conference will bring together leading scientists from the fields of microbiology, ecology, immunology, gastroenterology and paediatrics to discuss the latest developments in this fast developing field. Gut microflora play important roles in how we derive energy from our diet and how we store this energy. Recent studies have revealed the extraordinary complexity of the gut microbial ecology and its network connectivity to the metabolic regulation of important pathways in the host. Microbiome abnormalities have been associated with many non-infectious diseases including inflammatory bowel conditions, colonic cancer, autoimmune diseases, diabetes and obesity and autism. Gut microbial activity also plays an important role in drug metabolism and toxicity. Understanding the role of the microbiome will offer new insights into major disease processes and discovery of new therapeutic strategies that either target the microbiome directly or use this information in new stratified medicine approaches. Abstract deadline: 12 March 2012 | Registration deadline: 9 April 2012