The Cancer and Microbes Working Group will be holding regular meetings during the spring semester to showcase the collaborative projects initiated and supported by Cancer and Microbes connections.
Attendance is open to all. Presentations by students, postdocs, or others directly involved in the experimental workflow are encouraged.
"Examining Changes in the Gastrointestinal Microbiome at Pre-neoplastic Stages of the Adenoma"
Speaker: Christopher Gaulke, PhD, Assistant Professor, Pathobiology
Abstract: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a leading cause of cancer-related mortality and is associated with advanced age as well as environmental, hereditary, dietary and behavioral factors. Emerging evidence indicates that gut microbiome disruption also associates with CRC. Since CRC follows the adenoma-carcinoma sequence identifying microbial changes that occur at this stage may identify diagnostic markers of CRC risk or targets for preventative therapies. In this presentation Dr Gaulke will discuss his collaborations examining changes in the gastrointestinal microbiome at pre-neoplastic stages of the adenoma in a cohort of patients undergoing screening colonoscopy. These studies indicate that while fecal and oral microbial communities were poor diagnostics of adenoma formation, a random forest classifier built from mucosal microbial community abundances reliably diagnosed adenoma formation (AUC = 0.993; out-of-bag error = 3.2%). The accuracy of this classifier was strongly influenced by five taxa associated with the family Lachnospiraceae, genera Bacteroides and Marvinbryantia, and Blautia obeum. Dr Gaulke will further discuss his ongoing collaborations that seek to understand the mechanistic underpinnings of these associations and to determine if microbiome targeted interventions can reduce risk of CRC.
