Raphael H. Valdivia is the Nanaline Duke Professor of Molecular Genetics and Chair of the Department of Integrative Immunobiology at Duke University School of Medicine. His research focuses on understanding how pathogenic and beneficial microbes adapt to their environments and how they influence the physiology of their hosts. The work presented will focus on Akkermansia muciniphila, a mucophilic microbe currently being considered as a next-generation probiotic for various immune and metabolic disorders.

Dr. Ahn is a postdoctoral fellow in the Arthur Lab in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research investigates how intestinal microbes and their metabolites influence host signaling networks that drive chronic inflammatory diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease, fibrosis, and microbe-associated tumorigenesis. Her work focuses … Read more