In Baker's Systems Medicine and Bioinformatics Laboratory, I study how lipid metabolism links to cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.
Hidden risk: lipid and other molecular markers of future cardiovascular disease, especially in people living with type 2 diabetes.
Risk prediction: turning these markers into risk scores.
Inherited or modifiable: separating the genetic contribution to lipid levels from the effects of diet, medicines and gut microbial functions.
Microbes and lipids: how gut microbial genes and pathways relate to the host lipidome.
I concentrate on studying the effects of microbes within the human body on various health outcomes using population-level omics data.
I am interested in uncovering topics such as:
Communities: How the overall composition of Bacteria and Archaea in different body sites can be connected to health and disease states.
The effect of a single species: Searching for links between single species, especially pathogen-harbouring species, with chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes, and heart conditions.
Long-term follow-up: Leveraging data from cohorts with extended follow-up periods to explore connections between the microbiome and health developments over time.
Public health: Producing findings on how microbial features may act as risk or protective factors against various diseases at the population level that are particularly relevant for public policies.
When unique species or lineages of microbes are of high interest because they are related to health outcomes, I am interested in studying them deeply by exploring topics such as:
Genomic variability: Exploring how genetic variations among selected lineages contribute to adaptability, survival, and how they interact in the human body and influence health.
Pathogenomics: Identifying what genomic features (e.g. virulence factors, antibiotic resistence genes) define pathogenicity in Bacteria.
Persistence: Studying how and for how long different strains can persist in various locations of the human body.
Source variation: Investigating the origins and diversities of microbial lineages to understand how this knowledge can be better applied in public health strategies.