The role of mucosal-associated microbiome in the resolution of inflammation in inflammatory bowel disease.

Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) are chronic immune-mediated conditions affecting the gastrointestinal tract. They are very common, with a global prevalence approaching 20-30 million individuals by 2025.

The gut microbiome is a critical factor in the development of IBD and there are now several approaches that are aimed at manipulating the gut flora as therapy including faecal transplantation, probiotics and selective expansion of beneficial bacteria populations using spore technologies. However, we do not have the Precision Medicine tools to refine our understanding of the complex gut microbiome and its inter-connection with IBD disease activity, to improve the way we choose and tailor microbial-based treatments.

Emerging evidence suggests that inflammation may begin in the oral cavity and spread to the gut as pathobionts move between those body sites, hence there is a need to investigate the oral-gut microbiome axis in IBD.

Robert, alongside PI's with bioinformatics, clinical and IBD expertise, aims to characterise the metagenome to determine if the complexities of the gut microbiome can be refined and reduced based on oral microbiome data, to allow for a simple, quicker and more acceptable form of microbiome analysis that can be carried out in the widest IBD setting. Together, they will use strain-level metagenomics to look at the cross-talk between the oral and gut microbiota in IBD, and functional metagenomics to look at functional correlates with disease progression/outcome.