Microbiota Brain Axis

Dr. Jane Foster, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, at the Center for Depression Research and Clinical Care at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. In the past 20 years, Dr. Foster has developed an internationally recognized translational research program that uses a ‘bench to bedside’ and back again approach to studying microbiota - brain and immune - brain systems. As one of the early proponents of the role of gut - brain axis in mental health, her lab produced important data demonstrating a role for the microbiome in brain development and behavior in animal studies and recently has extended this work to study the complex neurobiological underpinnings of microbiota - brain and neuroimmune systems in psychiatric illness in clinical populations. Her multidisciplinary expertise includes behavioral neuroscience, molecular biology, immunology, neuroimaging, microbiome, and bioinformatics in both preclinical and clinical research domains. Dr. Foster’s research program has developed high-quality analytical pipelines for biological data and novel analytical tools for integrating data across modalities. Prof. Gerard Clarke, Ph.D., is a Professor of Neurobehavioral Science in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Science and a Principal Investigator in APC Microbiome Ireland at University College Cork. His research program includes a focus on translational biomarkers of stress-related neuropsychiatric disorders, the impact of the gut microbiome on brain and behavior across the life span, and microbial regulation of tryptophan metabolism. Key achievements of his lab in the generation of knowledge around the microbiota - gut - brain axis include the demonstration that the gut microbiome regulates the hippocampal serotonergic system in a sex-dependent manner, findings that paved the way for numerous lines of inquiry on the effects of the gut microbiome on neurodevelopment, brain function, and behavior. He is regularly included in Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers list, placing him among the world’s top one percent of researchers by citation. His current approach is based on advancing frontier knowledge in microbiome research to yield potential new therapeutic targets for the effective treatment of the central nervous system and gastrointestinal disorders.