by Joshua LaBaer
Dear Arizona Bioscience Friends and Collaborators:
We are excited to announce the creation of the Biodesign Center for Health Through Microbiomes (BCHTM), led by our own Dr. Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown (“Dr. Rosy”). Dr. Rosy also serves as a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment and has been a faculty member of the Biodesign Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology at ASU for 13 years.
The new center will focus on what humans are mostly made of: microbes. From the perspective of genes, people are 1% human and 99% microbe. The human microbiome (microbes that live in our bodies) contain bacteria, fungi, viruses, and archaea. Unbalanced microbiomes lead to obesity and type 2 diabetes, altered metabolism, autism, depression, Clostridium difficile infections, irritable bowel syndrome, colon cancer, and unpredictable drug metabolism. The work in this new center will capitalize on our ability to manage the human microbiome to have a positive, transformational effect on human health.
Groundbreaking work in her lab has led to the understanding of the relationship between the microbiome and autism spectrum disorder. Dr. Rosy is currently conducting clinical work on the management of autism through microbiota transplant therapy with ASU Engineering colleague James Adams; and another one looking at the microbiome contribution to energy balance and human metabolism. The Biodesign Center for Health Through Microbiomes will be the leader in autism-microbiome and microbial interventions. Building Biodesign’s capacity in concert with strong industrial collaborations, the center also will generate discoveries in a wide range of interventions involving nutrition and gut-brain connections. This translational center will lead to better management of obesity, autism and neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Research into the microbiome has provided a crucial bridge between our food and our health. These programs will revolutionize medicine.
Dr. Rosy earned her bachelor’s degree in industrial biochemical engineering at the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana Iztapalapa (UAMI) Mexico City and subsequently completed her master’s and doctorate at Georgia Tech. She was a Fulbright Scholar and won an NSF CAREER early in her time at ASU. Dr. Rosy has a distinguished record of publication complemented by the award of a number of patents. In keeping with the Biodesign theme of translation of our work from the laboratory to clinical innovations to improve the lives of patients, Dr. Rosy’s work contributed to establish a company to commercialize these concepts. That company, Autism Diagnostics, LLC, is focused on developing diagnostic tests for autism based on the observed profile of metabolism in patients: the study of metabolomics.
I hope you will join me in congratulating Dr. Rosy as she starts an exciting new center at the Biodesign Institute at ASU. We are grateful to her for this opportunity to expand our depth of research in this area. Rosy is a proven innovator and a terrific scientific collaborator. Reach her directly to pursue scientific collaboration (Dr.Rosy@asu.edu (480) 727-7574) as we all work to accelerate our research discoveries.
Sincerely,
Josh