Microbial Ecology and Theory of Animals Center for Excellence in Systems Biology

描述（由申请人提供）：俄勒冈大学系统生物学微生物生态学和动物理论中心（META CSB）的目标是为宿主-微生物系统生物学的新领域奠定基础。我们的中心将创新工具，实验方法，最佳实践，分析框架和概念模型，以描述宿主-微生物系统如何组织，宿主和微生物如何通过空间和时间动态相互作用，以及这些系统如何演变。我们将专注于脊椎动物肠道中复杂的宿主相关微生物系统，并将研究相互作用的双方，描述微生物群落以及宿主对其组成，动态和驱动其相互作用的进化力量的整体反应。我们将使用两种鱼类模型，斑马鱼和棘鱼，进行控制良好的操作实验，以反映人类宿主-微生物的相互作用。我们的研究将结合群落生态学和种群生物学的理论严谨性与我们的非生物鱼模型的实验优雅性，其细菌群落可以完全定义。我们将利用测序技术和实时成像技术的创新来创建全面的大规模数据集，描述宿主相关微生物群落的成员和动态以及相应的宿主反应。我们将创新采样理论、空间生物多样性理论和概率模型的应用，以分析我们的数据并推断宿主-微生物系统组装、动态和进化的系统级特性。我们为宿主-微生物系统生物学开发的知识和方法将直接适用于与人类相关的微生物群落的研究，如人类微生物组计划，并将彻底改变对许多疾病的理解，包括炎症性肠病，糖尿病，癌症，哮喘和自闭症。我们在科学探究、教育和推广方面的创新和综合方法将为新一代多样化的宿主-微生物系统生物学家创造一个肥沃的培训环境。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of the Microbial Ecology and Theory of Animals Center in Systems Biology (META CSB) at the University of Oregon is to create the foundation for a new field of host-microbe Systems Biology. Our Center will innovate the tools, experimental approaches, best practices, analytical frameworks, and conceptual models required to describe how host-microbe systems organize, how hosts and microbes interact dynamically through space and time, and how these systems evolve. We will focus on the complex host associated microbial system of the vertebrate intestine and will study both sides of the interaction, characterizing the microbial communities as well as the host responses in toto with respect to their components, dynamics, and the evolutionary forces driving their interactions. We will use two fish models, zebrafish and stickleback, to perform well-controlled, manipulative experiments that mirror host-microbe interactions in humans. Our investigations will combine the theoretical rigor of community ecology and population biology with the experimental elegance of our gnotobiotic fish models, whose bacterial communities can be entirely defined. We will exploit innovations in sequencing technology and live imaging to create comprehensive large-scale datasets describing the membership and dynamics of host-associated microbial communities and corresponding host responses. We will innovate applications of sampling theory, spatial biodiversity theory, and probabilistic models to analyze our data and deduce system-level properties about host-microbe system assembly, dynamics, and evolution. The knowledge and approaches we develop for host-microbe Systems Biology will be directly applicable to studies of microbial communities associated with humans, such as the Human Microbiome Project, and will revolutionize the understanding of numerous diseases including inflammatory bowel diseases, diabetes, cancers, asthma, and autism. Our innovative and integrated approaches to scientific inquiry, education, and outreach will create a fertile training environment for a new and diverse generation of host-microbe System Biologists.