Understanding The Gut Microbiota

This book discusses the bacterial community (microbiota) of the human large bowel. Hundreds of articles about the gut microbiota authored by scientists in numerous countries have appeared in the scientific literature during the past decade. This trend seems set to continue due to major funding commitments made by the European Union (Seventh Framework) and the Human Microbiome project sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (USA). High throughput technology has resulted in a plethora of data as well as advanced bioinformatics methods to attempt to cope with analysis. However, it is often difficult to perceive new concepts emerging from much of this work. In general, as is characteristic of science and other human endeavors, there is a cyclical renewal of old knowledge but in more detail. Rather than continue to only collect facts, it is time to enter a path to understanding the bowel ecosystem using the new details. This entails the derivation of new concepts as well as confirming those that were formulated long ago. It might be useful to provoke debate in scientific circles by challenging some existing perceptions. The aim, therefore, is to produce a concise, scholarly treatise about the bacterial community of the human bowel in order to provide insight and stimulus to postgraduate researchers, ingénue as well as experienced, from a perspective of an academic who has been familiar with the topic for 40 years and is still enlightened by his current research. Therefore the object is to boost thought, encourage young scientists, and stimulate the next generation of scientists to accomplish new and productive research in the
decade to come.

Professor Gerald W. Tannock is based at the University of Otago and was awarded a Professorial Chair in 1996. He was awarded a Royal Society of New Zealand Silver Medal in 2000 for his contributions to science and technology and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 2002.
Professor Tannock's research concerns the communities of bacteria that inhabit the gastrointestinal tract of animals. Research projects include the microbiology of inflammatory bowel diseases, the use of a unique colony of Lactobacillus-free mice in investigating the molecular foundations of gut autochthony using lactobacilli as model bacteria, engineering bowel communities by dietary manipulation, and the impact of bifidobacterial species on the activation of human dendritic cells with respect to atopic diseases. Professor Tannock's expertise has added an important microbiological facet to national and international, multi-disciplinary clinical studies in recent years.