Search Results - Jeffrey I. Gordon

Jeffrey I. Gordon

Jeffrey I. Gordon (born 1947) is a biologist and the Dr. Robert J. Glaser Distinguished University Professor and Director of The Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences & Systems Biology at Washington University School of Medicine. He is internationally known for his research on gastrointestinal development and for founding the field of human microbiome research. His research has revolutionized our understanding of the human microbiome and its roles in health and disease, particularly with regard to nutrition, digestion and metabolism.

Gordon’s research has significantly advanced scientific understanding of the human gut microbiome as a microbial “organ” that affects human health and disease beyond gastrointestinal health. Much of his work has focused on addressing the global health challenge of childhood undernutrition. Central questions that Gordon and his lab are pursuing include how our gut microbial communities influence human health, what interventions will repair microbial communities for an individual or a population to optimize healthy development, and how to create local infrastructures to deliver treatment in affordable, culturally acceptable, appetizing foods. He and his team identified underdeveloped gut microbiota as a contributing cause of childhood malnutrition and found that therapeutic food aimed at repairing the gut microbiome is superior to a widely used standard therapeutic food to treat childhood malnutrition. Unlike standard therapeutic foods, these microbiome-directed foods improve long-term effects of malnutrition, including problems with metabolism, bone growth, immune function and brain development.

Gordon has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (2001), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2004), the National Academy of Medicine (2008), and the American Philosophical Society (2014). Provided by Wikipedia