Postdoctoral Fellowship: SPRF: Anthropological Investigation of Demographic Variability in the Ancient Oral Microbiome

博士后奖学金：SPRF：古代口腔微生物组人口统计学变异性的人类学调查

• 批准号: 2313721
• 负责人: Allison Ham
• 金额: $ 16万
• 依托单位: Ham, Allison C
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-09-15 至 2025-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2313721&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Postdoctoral; Fellowship; SPRF; Anthropological; Investigation

This award was provided as part of the NSF Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) programs. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Laura Weyrich at the Pennsylvania State University, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career researcher investigating the effect of demographic variables (age, sex) on variation within the ancient oral microbiome to elucidate how these differences relate to health outcomes in the past. While there is a strong connection between the oral microbiome and disease in living populations, the relationship between individual variation in oral microbiota and health disparities remains unclear. Hence, this project aims to gain insight into the relationship between the human oral microbiome, health, and disease by investigating what demographic factors produce individual variation in oral microbiota. Anthropological studies on human-pathogen interactions can further our understanding of the etiology of certain diseases and how social and environmental conditions in the past helped to shape health inequities observed in living populations. Therefore, by contributing temporal information on past biological, social, and environmental factors related to health outcomes, the results of this project can help in the development of public health interventions that target health risks and exposures and can help to improve the quality of the life for groups who are disproportionately impacted by health disparities.Drawing on perspectives from anthropology, microbiology, demography, and ecology, this project studies age- and sex-specific variability in the ancient oral microbiome using paleodemographic and biomolecular analyses conducted on existing dental calculus samples from medieval and post-medieval cemeteries to achieve two primary research objectives. First, reexamine the effects of demographic factors (age and sex) on the diversity and composition of the human oral microbiome. Second, investigate how variation in microbiota diversity and composition effects sex-based health outcomes, as manifested in variation in risks of mortality, across time. To achieve these objectives a Bayesian approach to transition analysis is used to generate age point estimates for age-at-death, and genomic and proteomic procedures as well as traditional morphological skeletal traits are used to estimate sex. Oral microbiota diversity and composition are assessed using metrics of alpha- and beta-diversity, and hazards-based statistical approaches are employed to assess the effect of these metrics on survivorship. Ultimately, this project’s integration of paleodemographic and biomolecular data can shed light on the etiology of skeletal manifestations of disease and their relationship to survival; the role pathogens played in shaping past human populations; and the mechanisms involved in human-microbial interactions and the production of differential patterns of human health across time.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.

该奖项是NSF社会，行为和经济科学博士后研究奖学金（SPRF）计划的一部分。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界，工业或私营部门和政府的科学事业准备有前途的早期职业博士级科学家。SPRF的奖励包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行两年的培训，并鼓励博士后研究员进行独立研究。NSF致力于促进来自科学界各部门的科学家，包括来自代表性不足的群体的科学家参与其研究计划和活动;博士后期间被认为是实现这一目标的专业发展的重要水平。每个博士后研究员必须解决推进各自学科领域的重要科学问题。在宾夕法尼亚州立大学的Laura Weyrich博士的赞助下，该博士后奖学金支持早期职业研究人员调查人口统计学变量（年龄，性别）对古代口腔微生物组内变异的影响，以阐明这些差异如何与过去的健康结果相关。虽然口腔微生物群与生活人群中的疾病之间存在密切联系，但口腔微生物群的个体差异与健康差异之间的关系仍不清楚。因此，该项目旨在通过调查哪些人口统计学因素导致口腔微生物群的个体差异来深入了解人类口腔微生物群，健康和疾病之间的关系。人类学研究人类病原体的相互作用可以进一步了解某些疾病的病因，以及如何在过去的社会和环境条件有助于塑造健康不平等的观察到的生活人群。因此，通过提供与健康结果有关的过去生物、社会和环境因素的时间信息，本项目的结果可以帮助制定针对健康风险和暴露的公共卫生干预措施，并有助于改善受健康差异影响不成比例的群体的生活质量。该项目利用对来自中世纪和后中世纪墓地的现有牙结石样本进行的古人口统计学和生物分子分析，研究古代口腔微生物组的年龄和性别特异性变异，以实现两个主要研究目标。首先，重新审视人口因素（年龄和性别）对人类口腔微生物组多样性和组成的影响。其次，研究微生物群多样性和组成的变化如何影响基于性别的健康结果，如死亡风险随时间的变化所示。为了实现这些目标，贝叶斯方法过渡分析用于生成年龄点估计的死亡年龄，基因组和蛋白质组学程序以及传统的形态骨骼特征用于估计性别。使用α-和β-多样性的度量来评估口腔微生物群多样性和组成，并且采用基于危害的统计方法来评估这些度量对存活率的影响。最终，该项目将古人口和生物分子数据结合起来，可以阐明疾病骨骼表现的病因及其与生存的关系;病原体在塑造过去的人类种群中所起的作用;以及人体内的机制该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得支持的，使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估。