Esi SamaNatyaLamouse-SmithMDPhD

Summary

• From my clinical observations as a pediatrician and gastroenterologist, I became concerned about the potential impact of indiscriminate antibiotic use during early infancy on the gut microbiome and how this may alter parameters of immune system development and function. The foundation of our capacity to properly respond to dangerous immune stimuli, or conversely, not respond to innocuous stimuli is probably established during this critical window early in life and is greatly influenced by our own microbiome.
  
  Up until recently, there has not been great historic interest in infant and childhood immunity in the field of immunology; everything that we understand about immunity has been derived from adult animal models. I have developed a model in which antibiotics alter the abundance and representation of the gut microbiome in infant mice and this has a deleterious impact of enhancing their susceptibility to viral infection. This model, has allowed me to test basic and fundamental questions about how immunity is shaped during infancy and childhood by the gut microbiome. Nevertheless, this model can also be applied to examine conditions that develop during childhood and in which the gut microbiome is likely to play a role. These diseases include celiac disease, food allergies, and inflammatory bowel disease. I believe that discoveries that we make in my lab can be used to inform collaborative clinical studies to examine how abnormal changes in the intestinal microbiome during infancy/childhood may enhance susceptibility to autoimmune and metabolic diseases later in life and allow us to devise preventive strategies that correct the microbiota or immune function.

NYP GASTROENTEROLOGY & GI SURGERY 2016 :: The Infant Microbiome
The Infant Microbiome and Its Influence on Development of Disease The gut microbiome is a perennial hot topic in gastroenterology-and increasingly in the genera