Learning how Bacterial Chemicals Impact Human Health

We play host to a huge number of microbes, and all the chemicals that they produce. Researchers in the lab of Jason Crawford at Yale University are trying to learn more about those chemicals. They want to find bacterial molecules that might improve human health, or play a role in the development of colon cancer.

In this video, Crawford discusses his research in metabolomics, a field that examines the small molecules that are produced as other stuff is broken down by the body. The small molecules made by bacteria influence human health, especially the human immune system. As such, some of them could make great therapeutics, we just have to find them first.