Imagine yourself as the head of a funding agency (like the National Institute of Health) in which your job is to look at proposals for research projects and decide what projects to award funding to. Based on your readings this term, discuss a research project (or projects) that you would be most excited about funding as they relate to learning more about microbial influences on human health. As part of your response, consider what are we likely to learn from the project and how that might be important in future healthcare decisions.

For my research project that I would fund, I would like to investigate more into the brain-gut axis and how it would affect various neurological disorders. From this project, we will be able to learn more about the interactions of microbes that eventually lead or have connections to diseases such as Parkinson’s disease. This is important to learn as neurological diseases have been on a rise in our society. New research has found various links between microbes and the human brain. But, there is little research done about it. We might learn more about those connections and further our understanding as to how these diseases might arise. This will be important in the future for healthcare decisions when proceeding with experimental procedures or even with medications. It could show how a certain microbe affects the nervous system overall.

Part 1: Set a timer for 3 minutes, and make a list of as many human non-infectious diseases that you can think of that are influenced by microorganisms.

Part 2: Refer back to your Writing Exercise #1 that you completed the first week of class. Reflect and discuss how your responses have changed from week 1 to week 10, and what the most important topics you will take away with you once you have completed the course.

1:

• cancer
• diabetes
• anxiety
• obesity
• asthma
• allergic diseases
• immunodefieciency disease

2:

Compared to my week one work, I believe that I have now a deeper understanding as to what exactly is a non-infectious disease and how microbes are a big influence on the onset of non-infectious diseases. Looking back at the first week, I think that I heavily relied on others’ information rather than my own knowledge. Now after taking this class, I have more knowledge about various topics concerning health and non-infectious diseases.

The main takeaway that I will take with me after finishing this course is that microbes, if manipulated, can affect and bring up various diseases in the human body. I found it quite fascinating how there is a brain-gut axis that affects neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s. Just the knowledge that I gained from knowing that microbes are much more than just simple organisms in our body has been amazing. For example, reading about how the manipulation of microbes in germ-free and non-germ-free mice leads to the increase of diseases in the subject has made me realize that the microbiome in our bodies is a widely unexplored and interesting area of study.

In W. P. Hanage’s article, he discusses the importance of five key questions when interpreting scientific literature:

• Can experiments detect differences that matter?

Hanage questions this in their writing discussing that “pinning an outcome to any particular entity is likely to be hard unless the networks are already well characterized.” Overall, Hanage discusses the difficulty that comes with distinguishing functionality in microorganisms when there is little known about them such as their genetic coding. Emphasis on genetic coding to find the true differences between organisms’ similarities seems to be what Hanage is leading towards.

• Does the study show causation or correlation?

As stated by Hanage, the problem with this question is that microbes that are being associated with diseases due to correlation might sometimes simply be a bystander to the disease. Another thing that Hanage discussed was the lack of talking about the reverse casualties in their studies.

• What is the mechanism?

Hanage explains how experiments to discover the true mechanisms of the microorganisms is necessary. This would then help us understand the most accurate causes of microbial influences.

• How much do experiments reflect reality?

It does not really reflect either a subject’s natural state or responses. It seems that experiments only truly isolate the microorganism and sees how it behaves and to understand the effects of having that microorganism studies in subjects such as germ free mice. But overall, you cannot see the effects on a subject with these microorganisms in their natural macrobiotic flora.

• Could anything else explain the results?

There could be other things such as diet that could explain the results. There is still much that needs to be learned about the microbiome of the body. Hanage even explains that the information given out may be dangerous as many researchers are ill-informed by the results that need to be develop further with better methods of testing.

Explain the significance that each of these questions have on interpreting scientific literature. Which is most helpful when discussing controversy, and why?

The most helpful when discussing controversy would be what is the mechanism. I believe that understanding the true cause to the functions and issuing what they might do separately is very important when talking about controversy. For example, testing the mechanism and discovering the root cause to that mechanism would help when debating your point against others in the field that might think differently.

As we know, thanks to the previous studies shown in class, microbiota influences the body in many ways. The most common microbiome known in the human body is the gastrointestinal microbiota. The microbiome is very influential towards many functions of the intestines. The microbiota may lead to gastrointestinal problems, cancer, allergies, obesity, etc. Having a diminished microbiome in the gut may lead to the risk of many of these factors arising. Seeing that the microbiome in the gut has such an influential impact on the human body, it could also impact the neurological system.

From the readings that I have done, it seems that the brain communicates with the gut microbiome. It seems that the brain can affect the structure and function of the gut microbiota through the autonomic nervous system. Martin, et. al state in The Brain-Gut-Microbiome Axis that the brain does this by, “modulating regional gut motility, intestinal transit and secretion, and gut permeability, and potentially through the luminal secretion of hormones that directly modulate microbial gene expression.” I found it pretty interesting that the communication between gut microbiota and the autonomic nervous system leads to alterations of the gut in the human body.

1. Feeding a baby formula decreases the amount of microbiomes it is exposed to rather than feeding from the mother’s milk.
2. Not going outside and playing in the environment decreases microbiome growth.
3. C-section birth does not provide the healthy microbiota that is provided from a vaginal birth.
4. Misuse of antibiotics may decrease microbiota.

I would like to learn more about how microbiota affects neurological pathways. How does the microbiome in our system either help impact positively or negatively the neurological responses that one has in different sites of the body such as the GI tract? I think that I would also like to learn more about microbiota development in children with chronic illnesses. Probably just want to see the growth and development of microbes in the body of mostly toddlers and how that reflects on their development.

Neurological pathways interest me because microbiota brings in a lot of nutrients into the body. Microbiota also helps maintain the body. Therefore, if there is a lack of microbiota in the body then how would the neurological pathways be affected? There would be a lack of microbiota to help develop and maintain those pathways.

There are various ways that a mother and/or infant could be exposed to situations that influence the microbial community in them.

1. Mother could influence the infant’s microbrial community through her breastmilk if receiving antibiotics as they might increase antiviral resistance in the fetus.
2. Changes immunologically that the mother experiences affects the development of the infant’s immune system. This would then disrupt the microbes that inhabit the infant.
3. Vaginal delivery provides microbes that mirror the mother’s vaginal community while C-sections mirror those of the mother’s skin due to the epithelial tissue.
4. The mother’s food intake during the pregnancy heavily influences the child’s GI tract microbiota.
5. Weight also affect how the mother’s microbiota will be produced in the milk.

In my life, I have taken plenty of antibiotics to combat bacterial growth. In my personal opinion, I believe that having antibiotics is necessary for combating that bacterium that the body simply does not need. For example, the last time I needed an antibiotic was when I got a sore throat around two years ago. During these times, I only knew that taking antibiotics helped combat the sore throat and that was how I thought about everything that resulted in me needing antibiotics. Knowing what I know now about antibiotics, I know not to rely solely on antibiotics as many bacteria do create bacterial resistance against them. If it was not necessary then I would not take the antibiotic prescribed as it may make the bacteria already living in my body to be more resistant to the future antibiotics.

I do mostly eat anything that I can and do not take into consideration my nutrition. But, intentionally, I do eat a lot of proteins with my meals that may have an impact on my microbial communities. I do not intake a lot of sugars into my system. Sugars, overall, affect your microbiome negatively overall so it is a good thing that I do not consume much of them. I normally eat rice and protein with almost every meal that I have. But after taking this class for the past couple of weeks, I have learned how important it is to bring vegetables and fruits into my diet in order to develop more bacterial growth to replace the rapid bacterial death caused my proteins.

(1) In their research article entitled “Human Papillomavirus (HPV), HPV-Related Disease, and the HPV Vaccine” (2008), Kari P Braaten and Marc R Laufer discuss HPV, their related diseases, and which medications could be useful to diminish HPV. (2) Braaten and Laufer develop various explanations for how HPV infection results in genital warts and cancer via findings of other research articles and monitoring HPV patient visits, which then influence the type of medication that the patient might need. (3) The purpose of this research article is to find what causes HPV in patients and the symptoms of HPV infection, in order to find which is the appropriate medication to give to the patient depending on their infection. (4) Braaten and Laufer pose a discussion to develop other scholarly relationships with academics, mostly to influence other biomedical researchers interested in HPV infections.