Welcome!

I’m a postdoctoral scholar in the Laboratory of Prof. Ran Blekhman at the University of Chicago, where I study how the microbiome impacts health through metagenomic and genomic approaches. I am interested in understunding how the interplay between microbiome, diet, and social interactions impacts health outcomes and development in early life. In particular, my current projects are focused on:

• Investigating the role of maternal breast milk in modulating infant health leveraging multi-omics data. Breast milk is often an infant’s sole source of nutrition during the first months of life, yet its microbial and molecular composition, and how these components influence the developing gut microbiome and infant health, remain poorly understood. My recent work, showed that microbes in breast milk help shape the development of the infant gut microbiome. I am now expanding this research to understand how other components of breast milk influence infant health. This project is in collaboration with Prof. Ellen Demerath at the University of Minnesota.

• Investigating the transmission of the microbiome and antimicrobial resistance genes within hospitals. Hospitals represent a hotspot for the development of antimicrobial resistance and the acquisition of pathobionts during hospitalization can have serious health consequences, especially for vulnerable patients. I’m investigating how infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) acquire microbes and antimicrobial resistance genes, and the factors that shape this process. This project is in collaboration with the SET Center at the University of Chicago.

I also study the role of the microbiome in the health of wild animal populations, including baboons in the Amboseli Ecosystem (Kenya), rock hyraxes in Ein Gedi(Israel) and wolves. I’m particularly interested in how the microbiome is transmitted between individuals within social groups, and how its composition affects offspring survival, long-term health, and aging.