Increasingly, researchers are discovering that the microbiome plays a critical role in human health and disease, such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, HIV, depression, anxiety, and so on. This is not entirely surprising because humans have at least 10 times more microbial cells than human cells and from 100 to 1 million times more microbial genes than human genes. Thus, along with human genome, external environment, epigenetics, and others, the human microbiome is associated with our health and disease.
BBB staff collaborate closely with researchers investigating a wide range of questions relating to human health, disease, and the microbiome. One such collaborative relationship is with Dr. Merete Eggesbø at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health 
(Oslo, Norway), focusing on maternal and infant microbiome using a cohort of approximately 600 infants from the Norwegian Microbiota Study (NoMIC) , which was developed by Dr. Eggesbø.
Other examples of BBB collaborative projects on the microbiome include studies of the:
- Effects of maternal diet during pregnancy on the maternal gut microbiome at delivery
- Effects of antibiotics and mode of delivery on infant gut microbiome over time
- Dynamics of infant microbiome and short chain fatty acids
- Effects of environmental toxicants on oral microbiome (with Dr. Randi Jacobsen Bertelsen, University of Bergen, Norway)
Principal Investigator
Selected Publications
Dahl, C., Stigum, H., Valeur, J., Iszatt, N., Lenters, V., Peddada, S. D., Bjørnholt, J. V., Midtvedt, T., Mandal, S., & Eggesbø, M. (2018). Preterm infants have distinct microbiomes not explained by mode of delivery, breastfeeding duration or antibiotic exposure. International Journal of Epidemiology, 47(5), 1658-1669. PMID: 2988458
Mandal, S., Godfrey, K. M., McDonald, D., Treuren, W. V., Bjornholt, J. V., Midvedt, T., Moen, B., Rudi, K., Knight, R., Brantsaeter, A. L., Peddada, S. D., & Eggesbø, M. (2016). Fat and vitamin intakes during pregnancy have stronger relations with a pro-inflammatory maternal microbiota than does carbohydrate intake. Microbiome, 4(1). PMID: 27756413. PMCID: PMC5070355
Lee, M. K., Carnes, M. U., Butz, N., Azcarate-Peril, M. A., Richards, M., Umbach, D. M., Thorne, P. S., Freeman, L. E. B., Peddada, S. D., & London, S. J. (2018). Exposures related to house dust microbiota in a U.S. farming population. Environmental Health Perspectives, 126(6), 67001. PMID: 29863827. PMCID: PMC6084882
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