Microbiota in Health and Disease

The composition and function of the microbiome is associated with health and disease and is known to be modified by factors such as diet, medications, and environment. The aim of this course is to introduce students to basic and advanced concepts in the study of the microbiome and how it is regulated. It combines theory and practice to provide understanding of the complexity of the microbiome in the context of variations due to nutrition, inflammation, ageing, and western lifestyle factors, to mention some examples. It will cover monitoring the changes of the microbiome in health and disease as well as mechanistic and physiological understanding of gut microbe, microbe-microbe, microbe- gut interactions. The course will also cover the dynamics of the microbiome fluctuations during life, the effect of probiotics, and prebiotics and the potential result in a dysfunctional microbiome, so called dysbiosis. Students will learn about microbiome data analyses focusing on questions as, who is there and what are they doing? Data analyses activities will cover shot gut metagenomics and 16S rDNA sequencing, composition and function analyses, and use of databases.