Doctoral Dissertation Research: Industrialized ecologies and infant gut microbiome development

该奖项全部或部分根据2021年美国救援计划法案（公法117-2）资助。人类肠道微生物组是与人类共同进化的细菌和其他微生物的群落，在代谢和健康中起着重要作用。快速的全球工业化导致了饮食、生活方式和医疗实践的变化，所有这些都可能影响肠道微生物组的早期发育及其对能量储存和脂肪沉积的贡献。这个博士论文研究项目探讨了婴儿喂养和护理如何塑造肠道微生物组的发育和能量功能以及婴儿生长和脂肪沉积。这些发现可以帮助人们了解进化上的新环境如何与生物学和文化相互作用，并影响人类微生物组的发育及其对早期生命生长的贡献。该项目为女性科学家提供科学、技术、工程和数学方面的培训和指导，并在当地社区开展科学和公共卫生外联活动，该项目整合了生物文化人类学和进化医学的方法，以了解早期环境如何通过肠道微生物组影响婴儿的生长和代谢。该项目的主要目的是研究不同的补充饮食（婴儿的第一个非牛奶食品）和抗生素暴露对婴儿生长的影响以及断奶期间肠道微生物组的组成和能量功能。通过城市和农村环境中的母婴配对纵向队列，研究人员使用下一代测序和靶向代谢组学方法来测量婴儿粪便样本中细菌群落和短链脂肪酸（微生物能量活动的标志物）的组成。研究人员还收集定性和定量数据的婴儿饮食，健康史，抗生素暴露，肥胖和生长速度，从产后4至8个月。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得支持的评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). The human gut microbiome is a community of bacteria and other microorganisms that has co-evolved with humans and plays important roles in metabolism and health. Rapid global industrialization has led to changes in diet, lifestyle and medical practices, all of which may shape the early life development of the gut microbiome and its contribution to energy storage and fat deposition. This doctoral dissertation research project examines how infant feeding and care shape the development and energetic function of the gut microbiome and infant growth and fat deposition. The findings can inform the understanding of how evolutionarily novel environments interact with biology and culture and influence the development of the human microbiome and its contribution to growth in early life. The project provides training and mentoring in STEM for female scientists and involves science and public health outreach in local communities.This project integrates approaches from biocultural anthropology and evolutionary medicine to understand how early environments shape infant growth and metabolism through the gut microbiome. The primary aim of the project is to examine the impact of different complementary diets (an infant’s first non-milk foods) and antibiotic exposure on infant growth and the composition and energetic function of the gut microbiome during the weaning period. With a longitudinal cohort of mother-infant dyads in urban and rural settings, the investigators use next-generation sequencing and targeted metabolomics approaches to measure the composition of bacterial communities and short-chain fatty acids (markers of microbial energetic activity) in infant fecal samples. The investigators also collect qualitative and quantitative data on infant diet, health histories, antibiotic exposures, adiposity and growth rates from 4 to 8 months postpartum.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.