Gautam Dantas, PhD

Division

• Laboratory & Genomic Medicine

Additional Titles

• Co-Director, DBBS Computational and Systems Biology PhD Program

Related Links

• Dantas Lab

Education

• BA, with honors: Biology and Chemistry, Macalester College, St. Paul, MN (2000)
• PhD: Biochemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, WA (2005)
• Postdoctoral Fellowship: Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA (2009)

Recognition

• Violet O. Beltmann Undergraduate Research Scholarship, 1998‐2000
• Newcomb Cleveland Prize (AAAS) for Outstanding Publication in Science, 2004
• Harvard University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, 2008
• Kenneth Rainin Foundation Innovator and Breakthrough Awards, 2012-2014
• NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, 2012-2017
• Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. Foundation Scholar Award, 2014-2018
• Academy of Science-St Louis Innovator Award, 2015
• Young Scientist Program Most Active Principal Investigator, 2016
• Washington University Distinguished Educator Award, 2018
• American Academy of Microbiology Fellow, 2019
• DBBS 50^th Anniversary Lab Culture Award, 2023
• Washington University Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award, 2024

Research Interests

Our research group develops novel technologies to understand, harness, and engineer the biochemical processing potential of microbial communities. We work at the interface of microbial genomics, quantitative ecology, synthetic biology, systems biology, and computational biology to study problems with biotechnological and biomedical relevance. Our current projects are focused on three major themes: ((1) understanding and predicting how diverse microbiomes respond to chemical and biological perturbations, (2) harnessing these insights to rationally design strategies to curtail antibiotic resistant pathogens and remedy pathological host-microbiome states, and (3) engineering microbial platforms for novel industrial and therapeutic applications. More details at http://www.dantaslab.org/research/.

Mentorship and Commitment to Diversity

I lead an interdisciplinary research and training group of ~30 full-time and ~10 part-time basic scientists, engineers, and clinicians, spanning formal expertise in microbiology, biochemistry, genomics, pathology, infectious diseases, pediatrics, gastroenterology, dermatology, radiation oncology, ecology and evolution, systems biology, biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, biostatistics, and computational biology. I am a member of the Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences & Systems Biology and an Associate Member of the Siteman Cancer Center. In addition to my research efforts, I am deeply committed to education, mentoring, and training. I am the co-Chief of Research for the Division of Laboratory and Genomic Medicine. I am also the co-Director of the Computational & Systems Biology (CSB) graduate program, have served on the steering committee for both the CSB and Molecular Microbiology & Microbial Pathogenesis graduate programs, regularly teach in 3 graduate-level courses, and have served on over 100 qualifying exam and thesis committees. In November 2019 I participated in the “Maximizing Research Mentoring Relationships Workshop” led by an NRMN-trained facilitator, and in March 2024 I completed the “Optimizing the Practice of Mentoring 101: For Research Mentors of Graduate Students, Fellows, and Early-Career Faculty” course from the University of Minnesota. Over the past 15 years, I have mentored 18 postdoctoral fellows (12 PhD, 5 MD/PhD, 1 MD), 42 graduate students (including 3 MSTP), 3 medical students, 10 research technicians, and over 100 undergraduate interns. I have graduated 24 PhD, 2 MD/PhD, and 1 MSc students; 3 are independent faculty, 10 are in post-doctoral training, 1 is a K-12 teacher, and 13 work in biotech. 8 of my postdoctoral mentees have earned faculty positions, and 4 work in the biotech industry. I am committed to providing a nurturing, well-supported, and actively mentored environment for my team to collaboratively tackle challenging basic science and translational research problems.

Selected Publications

Mahmud B, Vargas RC, Sukhum KV, Patel S, Liao J, Hall LR, Kesaraju A, Le T, Kitchner T, Kronholm E, Koshalek K, Bendixsen CG, VanWormer JJ, Shukla SK, Dantas G. Longitudinal dynamics of farmer and livestock nasal and faecal microbiomes and resistomes. Nature Microbiol. 2024 Apr;9(4):1007-1020. doi: 10.1038/s41564-024-01639-4. Epub 2024 Apr 3. PMID: 38570675.

Fishbein SRS, Mahmud B, Dantas G. Antibiotic perturbations to the gut microbiome. Nature Rev Microbiol. 2023 Jul 25. doi: 10.1038/s41579-023-00933-y. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37491458.

Ferreiro AL, Choi J, Ryou J, Newcomer EP, Thompson R, Bollinger RM, Hall-Moore C, Ndao IM, Sax L, Benzinger TLS, Stark SL, Holtzman DM, Fagan AM, Schindler SE, Cruchaga C, Butt OH, Morris JC, Tarr PI, Ances BM, Dantas G. Gut microbiome composition may be an indicator of preclinical Alzheimer’s disease. Science Transl Med. 2023 Jun 14;15(700):eabo2984. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abo2984. Epub 2023 Jun 14. PMID: 37315112.

Schwartz DJ, Shalon N, Wardenburg K, DeVeaux A, Wallace MA, Hall-Moore C, Ndao IM, Sullivan JE, Radmacher P, Escobedo M, Burnham CD, Warner BB, Tarr PI, Dantas G. Gut pathogen colonization precedes bloodstream infection in the neonatal intensive care unit. Science Transl Med. 2023 May 3;15(694):eadg5562. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.adg5562. Epub 2023 May 3. PMID: 37134153.

Boolchandani M, Blake KS, Tilley DH, Cabada MM, Schwartz DJ, Patel S, Morales ML, Meza R, Soto G, Isidean SD, Porter CK, Simons MP, Dantas G. Impact of international travel and diarrhea on gut microbiome and resistome dynamics. Nat Commun. 2022 Dec 5;13(1):7485. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-34862-w. PMID: 36470885.

Thänert R, Choi J8, Reske KA, Hink T, Thänert A, Wallace MA, Wang B, Seiler S, Cass C, Bost MH, Struttmann EL, Iqbal ZH, Sax SR, Fraser VJ, Baker AW, Foy KR, Williams B, Xu B, Capocci-Tolomeo P, Lautenbach E, Burnham CD, Dubberke ER, Kwon JH, Dantas G; CDC Prevention Epicenters Program. Persisting uropathogenic Escherichia coli lineages show signatures of niche-specific within-host adaptation mediated by mobile genetic elements. Cell Host Microbe. 2022 May 9:S1931-3128(22)00214-1. doi: 10.1016/j.chom.2022.04.008. PMID: 35545083.

Fishbein SR, Robinson JI, Hink T, Reske KA, Newcomer EP, Burnham CD, Henderson JP, Dubberke ER, Dantas G. Multi-omics investigation of Clostridioides difficile-colonized patients reveals pathogen and commensal correlates of C. difficile pathogenesis. ELife. 2022. doi: 10.7554/eLife.72801. PMID: 35083969.

Rottinghaus AG, Ferreiro A, Fishbein SRS, Dantas G, Moon TS. Genetically stable CRISPR-based kill switches for engineered microbes. Nature Communications. 2022. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-28163-5. PMID: 35115506.

Kwak S, Mahmud B, Dantas G. A Tunable and Expandable Transactivation System in Probiotic Yeast Saccharomyces boulardii. ACS Synth Biol. 2021. doi: 10.1021/acssynbio.1c00384. PMID: 34939781.

Gasparrini AJ, Wang B, Sun X, Kennedy EA, Hernandez-Leyva A, Ndao IM, Tarr PI, Warner BB, Dantas G. Persistent metagenomic signatures of early-life hospitalization and antibiotic treatment in the infant gut microbiota and resistome. Nature Microbiology. 2019 Dec;4(12):2285-2297. doi: 10.1038/s41564-019-0550-2. PMCID: PMC6879825.

D’Souza AW, Potter RF, Wallace M, Shupe A, Patel S, Sun X, Gul D, Kwon JH, Andleeb S, Burnham CD, Dantas G. Spatiotemporal dynamics of multidrug resistant bacteria on intensive care unit surfaces. Nature Commun. 2019 Oct 8;10(1):4569. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-12563-1. PMCID: PMC6783542.

Crook N, Ferreiro A, Gasparrini AJ, Pesesky MW, Gibson MK, Wang B, Sun X, Condiotte Z, Dobrowolski S, Peterson D, Dantas G. Adaptive Strategies of the Candidate Probiotic E. coli Nissle in the Mammalian Gut. Cell Host Microbe. 2019 Apr 10. doi: 10.1016/j.chom.2019.02.005. PMCID: PMC6487504.

Boolchandani M, D’Souza AW, Dantas G. Sequencing-based methods and resources to study antimicrobial resistance. Nature Rev. Genetics. 2019 Mar 18. doi: 10.1038/s41576-019-0108-4. PMCID: PMC6525649.

Ferreiro A, Crook N, Gasparrini AJ, Dantas G. Multiscale Evolutionary Dynamics of Host-Associated Microbiomes. Cell. 2018 Mar 8;172(6):1216-1227. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2018.02.015. PMCID: PMC5846202.

Baumann-Dudenhoeffer AM, D’Souza AW, Tarr PI, Warner BB, Dantas G. Infant diet and maternal gestational weight gain predict early metabolic maturation of gut microbiomes. Nature Medicine. 2018 doi: 10.1038/s41591-018-0216-2. PMCID: PMC6294307.

Crofts TS, Gasparrini AJ, Dantas G. Next-generation approaches to understand and combat the antibiotic resistome. Nature Rev. Microbiology. 2017 Apr 10. doi: 10.1038/nrmicro.2017.28. PMCID: PMC5681478.

Park J, Gasparrini AJ, Reck MR, Symister CT, Elliott JL, Vogel JP, Wencewicz TA, Dantas G, Tolia NH. Plasticity, dynamics, and inhibition of emerging tetracycline resistance enzymes. Nature Chemical Biology. 2017 May 8. doi: 10.1038/nchembio.2376. PMCID: PMC5478473.

Langdon A, Crook N, Dantas G. The effects of antibiotics on the microbiome throughout development and alternative approaches for therapeutic modulation. Genome Med. 2016 Apr 13;8(1):39. doi: 10.1186/s13073-016-0294-z. PMID: 27074706; PMCID: PMC4831151.

Gibson MK, Wang B, Ahmadi S, Burnham CAD, Tarr PI, Warner BB, Dantas G. Developmental dynamics of the preterm infant gut microbiota and antibiotic resistome. Nature Microbiology. 2016. doi: 10.1038/nmicrobiol.2016.24. PMCID: PMC5031140.

Pehrsson EC, Tsukayama P, Patel S, Mejía M, Sosa-Soto G, Navarrete KM, Calderon M, Cabrera L, Hoyos W, Bertoli MT, Berg DE, Gilman RH, Dantas G. Interconnected microbiomes and resistomes in low-income human habitats. Nature. 2016. doi: 10.1038/nature17672. PMCID: PMC4869995.

Forsberg KJ, Patel S, Gibson MK, Lauber CL, Knight R, Fierer N, Dantas G. Bacterial phylogeny structures soil resistomes across habitats. Nature 2014; 509: 612. doi: 10.1038/nature13377. PMCID: PMC4079543.

Forsberg KJ, Reyes A, Wang B, Selleck EM, Sommer MO, Dantas G. The shared antibiotic resistome of soil bacteria and human pathogens. Science. 2012 Aug 31;337(6098):1107-11. doi: 10.1126/science.1220761. PMCID: PMC4070369.

Dantas G, Sommer MO, Oluwasegun RD, Church GM. Bacteria subsisting on antibiotics. Science. 2008 Apr 4;320(5872):100-3. doi: 10.1126/science.1155157. PMID: 18388292.

Kuhlman B, Dantas G, Ireton GC, Varani G, Stoddard BL, Baker D. Design of a novel globular protein fold with atomic-level accuracy. Science. 2003 Nov 21;302(5649):1364-8. PMID: 14631033.

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Assistant:
Jacquelin Theodore
314-362-3676
jacquelin@wustl.edu