Week 5 Bacterial Symbiosis

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Presentation given by Richard Ricketts on the research paper “Emergent simplicity in microbial community assembly” Goldford et al. Science, 2018, 3;361(6401):469-474. doi: 10.1126/science.aat1168. Emergent simplicity in microbial community assembly | Science (sciencemag.org)

The research attempts to understand the symbiosis between species of bacteria. If we were to imagine several types of bacteria all fighting over the same food supply, we might expect to see one species starve out the rest. What research has shown is that bacteria are able to feed off the metabolites of other bacteria, allowing all to thrive.


 In a colony of a few hundred varieties, the feeding structure can get complex. This research attempts to isolate and determine which varieties can feed off each other in order to construct a mathematical model. With this knowledge we may be able to propagate and control a healthy microbiome. It could help illuminate the root cause of some dysbioses, or potentially starve out unwanted bacteria as a form of treatment.

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