EEOB Associate Professor, Zakee Sabree (Principal Investigator), and Co-PIs Tanya Berger-Wolf, EEOB Professor, and Asuman Turkmen, were awarded a $1,234,547.00 National Science Foundation Grant for their work: Using Machine Learning and Animal Models to Reveal Bacterial Subnetworks Essential for Development Within Complex Gut Microbiomes.

Many animals, including mammals, harbor species-rich and functionally complex gut microbiomes and identifying bacterial lineages within those complex communities that are critical for animal growth and development presents challenges that can be addressed through interdisciplinary approaches. Specifically, machine learning approaches will be used to integrate high-replicate multi-omics data from the gut microbiome and its host as well as host developmental, physiological and gastric histological data from several well-defined microbiome perturbations to infer bacterial species sub-networks that are consistently associated with normal host growth and development. 

Read more about the grant on the NSF website.