Seth Rakoff-Nahoum, M.D., Ph.D.

Research

The Rakoff-Nahoum lab uses a broad toolkit in microbiology, immunology, host and bacterial genetics, gnotobiotics, bioinformatics, and computational biology, centered in ecological and evolutionary frameworks, to understand how microbes interact with the environment, each other, and their hosts. The driving principle of the lab is that by understanding the molecular, genetic, ecological, and evolutionary drivers of how microbiome communities form and shape and how the microbiome influences host tissue and physiological systems over time and across health and disease, we can design targeted and ecologically and mechanistically rational interventions to engineer a healthy and normative microbiome-host axis.

As an Innovation Fund investigator, Seth Rakoff-Nahoum, M.D., Ph.D., is teaming up with Jing-Ke Weng, Ph.D., to redefine the intricate relationship between food and health. The fundamental nature of food and how it impacts human health remains a mystery. The current concept of food—comprised of nutrition facts—is insufficient to illuminate these connections. The project draws on Rakoff-Nahoum’s research into dietary component fate and the factors that influence food processing and on Weng’s expertise in plant metabolomics, as well as the pair’s use of small molecules to interact with the environment and human body. Together, they will use isotopic labeling to precisely trace food molecules’ pathways, modifications, and host interactions. The researchers will also explore the immune response to food proteins and what differentiates allergenic from nonallergenic proteins. Findings from this project could expand the understanding of food beyond nutritional values to encompass food-host interactions, offering new insights into disease prevention and treatment, and fundamentally transforming the approach to global health.