It’s also involved with cancer treatment for example acting on chemotherapy drugs to either help activate them or cause side effects.

These were just a few of the topics discussed at the 6th annual symposium of the Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center a hybrid event held May 13 at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Understanding the microbiome’s role is very important from a patient perspective from a basic science perspective and provider perspective said Wendy Garrett Irene Heinz Given Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases in introductory remarks. She and Curtis Huttenhower professor of computational biology and bioinformatics are co-directors of the center.

These are thrilling times for the School thrilling times for medicine thrilling times for public health and especially for the microbiome said Andrea Baccarelli dean of the faculty. If I had to point out one single innovation in the understanding of the human body of health and disease I would have no hesitation to think the microbiome.

Oral microbiome’s influence beyond the mouth

The human microbiome is the collection of microorganisms that live in or on different parts of the body such as the mouth gastrointestinal tract and skin. It includes bacteria viruses fungi and other types of microbes.

Therapeutics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong shared her research on colorectal and gastric cancers. By comparing gut microbiome samples of individuals with and without those two cancers she identified several bacterial species that were associated with the development of disease. For gastric cancer in particular she identified bacteria that are known to live in the mouth rather than the gut. Yu also discovered some of the biological mechanisms potentially involved in the development of gastric cancer such as which protein receptors the disease-promoting bacteria bind to on the surface of gut cells.

Topics covered during the event included the roles of the microbiome in cancer treatments such as immunotherapy and radiation therapy the microbiome’s interactions with diet and the commercialization of microbiome science.

Source: https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/symposium-explores-microbiomes-roles-in-cancer/