Microorganisms are the origin and base of the biosphere, and they leave no environment or host sterile. They are ubiquitous, essential, and life-threatening depending upon their context. They hold more genetic secrets and innovations than any other life form, and this radical new awareness accumulated over the last two decades has caused one of the greatest shakeups in biology since Charles Darwin.
In this talk, I will offer a series of vignettes into my roles and research at Penn State, including the venerable Microbiome Center composed of over five hundred members, the ways we turn harmful insect microbes into positive outcomes for humans, the major trends of microbiomes across animal species complexes, and the urgent imperative to study human microbial diversity across the diversity of all of us. I am keen to develop new partnerships with you and hear how the Microbiome Center can facilitate research in your areas of interests.
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About the speaker
Bordenstein has peered into the world of microorganisms that dwell inside animals for the past 25 years. His philosophy to science is research the important keystones that we should already know about in textbooks or apply in the clinic, and his research specialties span the extraordinary utility of microbes to control mosquito-borne diseases, the secrets of microbiome diversity across the diversity of humans, and the major trends of host-associated microbiomes across the animal kingdom.
These interests align with the distinguished Microbiome Center that Bordenstein directs at Penn State. As one of the largest and most venerable organizations in the field, the Microbiome Center is composed of over 500 members who develop and execute complex and often transformative projects related to the microbiome sciences across agricultural, environmental, and human health. Bordenstein is a professor in the Departments of Biology and Entomology as well and the former and founding director of the worldwide HHMI-initiated science education program Discover the Microbes Within! The Wolbachia Project that brings biodiversity, biotechnology, and bioinformatics directly into the classroom.
He is the recipient of the 2014 Jeffrey Nordhaus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, 2014 Chancellor’s Award for Research, 2018 Chancellor Faculty Fellow Award from Vanderbilt University, 2020 Genetics Society of America Award for Excellence in Education, 2020 Centennial Endowed Professorship, and 2022 was named the Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Endowed Chair in Microbiome Sciences. There has never been a more important time to learn the story of Earth’s microbes and how they change both our perspective of nature and our identify of where we belong in it.