Four researchers who are charting new directions in the human microbiome will share their perspectives in “Engineering the Microbiome,” a session scheduled for April 7th at SynBioBeta London 2016 coming up April 6-8.

The human body has ten times more microbial cells and 100 times more microbial genes than human genes. A quadrillion genes reside in trillions of symbiotic cells that live within and on each of us. Many in the synthetic biology community now regard the microbiota that reside in the gut or on the skin as a distinct, highly organized organ that carries out many functions essential to human health. Their growth requires a specific microenvironment that’s difficult to reproduce experimentally, only a few microbial species have been successfully isolated for analysis. With increasingly advanced DNA sequencing technologies are enabling researchers to explore microbial communities without having to cultivate specimens. Instead of examining the genome of an individual bacterial strain that has been grown in a laboratory, this “metagenomic” approach examines genomes derived from microbial communities sampled from natural environments.A cosmetics and consumer goods entrepreneur who received her degree in chemical and biological engineering from MIT, Jasmina Aganovic will discuss her work with AOBiome and Mother Dirt to develop products that keep the skin biome in better balance and improve its feel and appearance. Among these is AO+Mist, a first-of-its-kind product that contains live Ammonia-Oxidizing Bacteria (AOB). Over the next year, Aganovic plans to extensively gather sequencing data to better understand how skin microbiome profiles correlate with skin health. At SynBioBeta, she’ll also discuss the challenges of manufacturing AOB products. “We were unable to rely on traditional manufacturing processes in the cosmetic and personal care industry and had to create new methods largely from scratch,” she says. “We've learned that the entire pipeline, from sourcing raw materials to sitting on the shelf had to be re-evaluated.”Having recently closed a seed-round with Seventure Partners and three business angels of $3 million, Xavier Duportet, CEO of Eligo Bioscience, will discuss Eligo’s effort to develop the next generation of antibiotics, though the CRISPR/Cas system he’s using has potential applications in many areas of the microbiome space. The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that as many as 10 million deaths per year might be attributed to antibacterial resistance by 2050, microbiome also has been linked to many other pathologies, from chronic diseases to autoimmune disorders. Duportet, who did his PhD research at MIT INRIA, and teamed with others from MIT and Rockefeller University in launching Eligo in 2014, with hopes to tackle such issues by developing ultra-precise antibiotics that target harmful or resistant bacteria while sparing beneficial ones.As Synlogic’s lead synthetic biologist, Jonathan Kotula is both leading the firm's technology development efforts and spearheading its investigation of new therapies for Urea Cycle Disorder (UCD), a rare but often fatal genetic metabolic disease. The company recently received a major boost, closing a Series B investment round with $40 million in additional financing from several investors. With a total investment of $70 million in hand, Synlogic expects to begin clinical trials in 2017 of both its UCD treatment and another for Phenylketonuria (PKU). “We’ve learned a lot over the past ten years or so, but we still really face a challenge in understanding how the gut interacts with a number of other diseases,” says Kotula, who earned his PhD at Duke and has done postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School and the Wyss Institute. “New research is constantly showing that there’s a bacterial component in autoimmune disease and inflammatory disease.”Confronting a history of skin cancer in her family, Noga Qvit-Raz launched Topgenix, Inc. three years ago with the aim of developing new technologies for UV protection and skin health. Previously studying microbial communities that live on the surfaces of leaves as a Postdoc at Stanford, she realized she could apply many of the same techniques to the study of microbial communities on skin. “The reality of skin cancer is really frightening and there’s a huge medical need to address it,” she says. “As Mark Twain said, ‘The finest clothing made is a person’s own skin.’”Be sure to mark your calendar for Session 5: Engineering the Microbiome for Thursday, April 7th starting at 5:00 PM.