Session Abstract – PMWC 2017 Silicon Valley
Session Synopsis: As the pace of investigations into the relationship between the human microbiome and disease states increases, new tools to interrogate and manipulate the microbiome are routinely reported. Several of these advances will be described in this session.
Speaker Profile
LL.B, MBA, CEO, Co-Founder, DayTwo
Biography
Lihi co-founded DayTwo in 2015 to bring personalized blood sugar control into the consumer mainstream. She is experienced in the analytical techniques needed to turn this scientific discovery into workable solutions for individuals, having been COO and CFO of Sisense, a provider of business intelligence and analytics software, before starting DayTwo. For more than ten years prior to that she has held senior roles in a number of IT led businesses, from startups to large public enterprises. She is a certified Lawyer, has an LLB from the Tel-Aviv University and an MBA from Northwestern University, USA.
Talk
Personalized Nutrition Using Gut Microbiome and Clinical Data
Groundbreaking research by scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute has proved a direct link between an individual’s gut microbiome and their blood sugar reactions to different foods. We’ll discuss how actionable personalized nutrition insights that help normalize blood sugar levels are generated, based on this research and proprietary machine learning algorithms.
Speaker Profile
Ph.D., Associate Professor of Medicine, Founder, Siolta Therapeutics
Biography
Dr. Lynch’s microbiome research program has three focal areas: 1. Early origins of disease development, with a focus on the infant gut microbiome as a contributor to subsequent childhood disease development; 2. Leveraging microbiome and immune profiles in established chronic inflammatory disease to stratify patients and tailor therapy and 3. Rational design of therapeutic cocktails of microbes for induction of immune tolerance. Dr. Lynch is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco, where she also Directs the Microbiome Research Core and acts as Associate Director of the Microbiome in Inflammatory Disease Program. She is also a founder and sits on the Board of Directors of Siolta Therapeutics.
Talk
The Gut Microbiome and Childhood Allergic Asthma
One month old infants possess one of three compositionally distinct gut microbiota states, predictive of relative risk for multi–sensitized atopy at age–two years and doctor–diagnosed asthma at age–four years. Manipulation of the murine gut microbiome with a rationally designed cocktail of bacteria prevents allergic airway sensitization.
Speaker Profile
Ph.D., Professor and the Peter J. Shields Endowed Chair in the Departments of Food Science & Technology at the University of California at Davis
Biography
Dr. Mills studies the molecular biology and ecology of bacteria that play an active role in gut health or fermented foods and beverages. In the last 20 years Dr. Mills has mentored over 30 graduate students and postdocs and published more than 150 papers, including seminal work on lactic acid bacterial and bifidobacterial genomics. At UC Davis, Dr. Mills has worked to define, investigate and translate the beneficial aspects of human milk and its role in human health. Dr. Mills has previously served as a Distinguished Lecturer for the American Society for Microbiology and currently serves as an editor for the journals Frontiers in Microbiology and mSystems. In 2010 Dr. Mills was awarded the Cargill Flavor Systems Specialties Award from the American Dairy Science Association. In 2012 he was named the Peter J. Shields Chair in Dairy Food Science and in 2015 he was elected a Fellow in the American Academy of Microbiology. Dr. Mills also serves on the Science/Research Advisory Boards of several food and health-focused companies and his research has helped launch two start up companies.
Talk
Restoring Ecosystem Function in the Infant Microbiome
Breast milk contains complex sugars that enrich specific bacterial functions in the infant gut. However, many infants in developed countries do not obtain these functions via normal transfer from their environment. By restoring specific bacteria after birth, we can restore proper ecosystem function of the breast fed infant microbiome.
