Athanasios Typas Creating model bacteria to uncover the hidden treasure of the human gut microbiome

The goldmine of the human microbiome

The human body contains as many bacterial cells as human cells. This large collection of microbes constitutes the human microbiome, the most important part of which resides in our gut. It has recently been established that the gut microbiome has multiple and varied effects on human health and well-being, far beyond helping to digest food and develop the immune system. Its impact is as much local, through protection against gastrointestinal diseases, as global, with effects on our brain and behavior. Thus, the human gut microbiome is receiving more and more attention due to its great therapeutic potential. But without knowing the identity and properties of the microorganisms that constitute it, it is impossible to go further in this direction.

Athanasios Typas and the human microbiome

Since the creation of his research group in 2011 at EMBL (Germany), Athanasios Typas has been developing high-throughput techniques to study bacteria and host-pathogen interactions, discover the modes of action and interaction of pharmaceuticals, and to fight antibiotic resistance. For example, he has shown that non-antibiotic drugs have a surprising direct impact on the fitness of the gut microbiota, and that microbes can accumulate these drugs and thus modify their availability to the human body. Furthermore, he discovered antidote molecules to counter the collateral damage of antibiotics on gut microbes, while maintaining their activity against pathogenic bacteria.

All the abilities and functions of gut microbes are encoded in their genomes. Yet these genomes remain largely unknown, as they bear no resemblance to existing model microbes that have been studied for decades in laboratories, such as the famous E. coli bacteria. What if tomorrow’s medicines were to be found in this vast unknown information?

Ciao E. coli, hello Bacteroidota

To further investigate the causal links between the microbiome and health, Athanasios Typas will create new relevant model bacteria needed to study and understand the human gut microbiome in the laboratory. To achieve this ambitious work, which previously took decades and the work of hundreds of laboratories, Athanasios Typas will bring together the efforts and expertise of several labs at EMBL to revolutionize the way model organisms are created. Combining state-of-the-art experimental and systematic computational approaches, the initial targets of this study will be two of the most abundant and common species of the human gut microbiome, belonging to the phylum Bacteroidota: Phocaeicola vulgatus and Bacteroides uniformis. The Liliane Bettencourt Prize for Life Sciences will allow Athanasios Typas' research project to make this happen and set the basis to extend this effort in the future to dozens of other key microbial species of the human gut microbiome, engaging the broader scientific community. Genome analysis of these new models will uncover the potential of gut microbes to produce bioactive compounds, to communicate with each other and the host, and to modify their environment. In addition, the study will serve as an example for future initiatives in other microbial ecosystems around the world that have yet to be explored.