Daniel Figeys, Ph.D

Director and Professor in the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Ottawa.

Mass spectrometry in the time of the microbiome

Abstract

Over the last decades numerous studies have reported a link between the gut microbiome and human health and diseases, including obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, gut-brain axis, and other diseases. Metabolites produced by the gut microbiomes are key players in the interactions between gut microbiome on the host. Metabolites secreted by the microbiome are produced by a series of enzymes from one or multiple microbes under different regulatory mechanisms. The field of microbiome has been primarily focused on using genomic tools to assess the composition of the microbiome and then predicting functional changes. Therefore, our understanding of the real functional changes that occur in a microbiome is very limited. Metaproteomics measures the functional changes in the microbiome and is well suited to better understand changes in biological processes and in particular metabolic pathways responsible to produce metabolites. I will briefly introduce the gut microbiome and the challenges that metaproteomic faces. I will present the techniques and bioinformatic tools we have developed for mass spectrometry-based microbiome analysis. I will show applications of metaproteomics in pediatric inflammatory bowel disease.

Biosketch

Daniel is the founding Director and Professor in the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Ottawa. He is a Distinguished Research Chair at the University of Ottawa. He co-founded and co-directs the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica-University of Ottawa Joint Center in Systems and Personalized Pharmacology. He was the founding director of the Ottawa Institute of Systems Biology. Prior to joining the University of Ottawa, Daniel was Senior Vice-President at MDS-Proteomics. Daniel obtained a B.Sc. and a M.Sc. in chemistry from the Université de Montréal. He obtained a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Alberta under the supervision of Dr. Norman Dovichi. He did his postdoctoral studies at the University of Washington in Molecular Biotechnology with Dr. Ruedi Aebersold. More recently, his laboratory has been developing technologies and bioinformatic tools to study the human microbiome. He recently co-founded a spin-off company called MedBiome focused on precision targeting of the gut microbiome.

Date
Date(s) - February 7, 2023
6:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Emplacement / Location
Université de Montréal - Campus MIL (Beer and pizza at 18h, conference at 19h in A-3502)