Education

Professional Memberships

Research Interests

The microbial communities associated with our body are important determinants of our health, particularly in the intestines where they help to shape our interactions with our diet. The Gordon Lab is focused on the role of the gut microbiota in defining healthy growth of infants and children and in the pathogenesis of malnutrition, the leading cause of death in children under 5 years of age worldwide. Our preclinical work with gnotobiotic animals and observational clinical work has established a link between the age-appropriate developmental trajectory of the microbiota and aspects of malnutrition – from this concept we have developed microbiota-directed complementary food (MDCF) formulations intended to repair the microbial communities of children with moderate acute malnutrition (MAM). We have tested prototypes of these formulations at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), in a 3-month randomized controlled trial (RCT) of 12-18-month-old Bangladeshi children with MAM. This work demonstrated clinical proof-of-concept (POC) that a lead MDCF formulation (‘MDCF-2’) produced a significant improvement in the rate of weight gain compared to a commonly administered ready-to-use supplementary food (RUSF) that was not designed to repair the gut microbiota.

Our current efforts are focused on follow up mechanistic studies of the microbiota and host physiology in the context of MDCF-2 treatment and improved weight gain, along with building additional clinical evidence of efficacy in Bangladesh and additional geographies. Of particular interest are ‘omics studies intended to identify the bioactive components of the MDCFs and which bacterial strains contribute to their efficacy.

Selected Publications