Overview
Type: Vanderbilt Initiative Award (ViA)
The Vanderbilt Microbiome Initiative (VMI) will provide Vanderbilt the opportunity to become the first university that unifies a major precision medicine initiative with personalized microbiome studies. The VMI will blend Vanderbilt’s clinical, basic, translational and educational endeavors into a community of 100+ microbiome scholars who will catalyze development of new microbiome research and education projects. As 21st century health care moves its focus toward precision medicine and self-tracking, microbiome samples that affect health and disease will need to be tracked, databased and integrated with human genome data to develop diagnostic, preventative and therapeutic approaches for improving health.
This project brings together multidisciplinary, but complementary expertise in Biology, Microbiology, Virology, Genetics, Nutrition, Metabolism, Pathology, Computer Engineering and Education to create an infrastructure that unifies the microbiome community at Vanderbilt. The initiative will also catalyze campus-wide research and teaching activities, and deploy state-of-the-art technologies and methods to advance the microbiome sciences.
Faculty Participants
Lead Faculty in bold
College of Arts & Science
- Seth Bordenstein, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences
School of Medicine (Clinical)
- Jane Ferguson, Assistant Professor of Medicine
- Heidi Silver, Research Associate Professor of Medicine
- Eric Skaar, Professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology
School of Engineering
- Akos Ledeczi, Professor of Computer Engineering