Engineering the human gut microbiome through personalized dietary interventions

The human gastrointestinal tract is home to a dense and dynamic microbial community. The composition and metabolic output of the human gut microbiota have been implicated in many diseases: from inflammatory bowel disease, colorectal cancer, and diarrheal diseases to metabolic syndromes like diabetes. Treatment of these diseases will likely require targeted therapeutic interventions aimed at modulating the abundance and metabolism of specific commensal microbial species or probiotics. A promising avenue for such interventions is through diet, where the dietary components act as substrates for the species producing beneficial metabolites one wishes to enrich. In this thesis, I focus on a dietary intervention study in healthy individuals. Since the human gut microbiota is known for its highly heterogeneous composition across different individuals, it comes as no surprise that a more personalized approach is preeminent.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Nguyen, Le Thanh Tu.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Eric J. Alm.

• Biological Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/130187

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/130187