Excited to have my first publication in graduate school! Published recently in Science Magazine, this is a review article I wrote with my adviser, Emily Balskus, and a senior graduate student in the lab. The article discusses the incredibly exciting topic of how gut microbes degrade the molecules we ingest (food, drugs, pollutants) and thus impact our overall health. This article will give you a sense of the topics I work on in graduate school and also will lay out the many opportunities and challenges that we face as a field. Overall, the article is a nice representation of my academic work at the interface between chemistry, microbiology, and nutrition.
Find the full article here: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6344/eaag2770.full
Here is more information about my thesis laboratory: https://scholar.harvard.edu/balskus/home
Here is the nice overview written by the editors at Science:
One person’s meat is another’s poison
The human gut is packed with actively metabolizing microorganisms. These have a transformative effect on what we ingest—whether food, drugs, or pollutants. Koppel et al. review the distinguishing features of microbial xenobiotic metabolism, its interaction with somatic metabolism, and interindividual variation. Depending on the functional composition of microorganisms in the gut, the subsequent products may have nutritionally beneficial effects, modify pharmaceuticals, or be toxic. All of these consequences of our companion microbes can have important impacts on human health and well-being.
Image from Science Magazine
Vayu Maini Rekdal 