CENTER FOR MICROBES, DEVELOPMENT AND HEALTH
A newly-created Center of Excellence at Institut Pasteur Shanghai, supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the City of Shanghai, recruits outstanding talents to comfort its research programs.
In the context of IPS, the Center for Microbes, Development and Health (CMDH) addresses the “post-modern, non-communicable epidemics” emerging in high-income regions, including high susceptibility of newborns to infections, and the developmental defects affecting populations in low-to-middle income regions, the focus being on the etiological role plaid by the ongoing global degradation of the human-microbial interface.
As a matter of fact, new-generation sequencing and bioinformatics have promoted the human gut microbiota to a position of significant driver of development, health and disease, hence the need to decipher the cross-talks established between commensal microorganisms at homeostasis and in disease states. Major challenges remain in defining the frontiers of the mutualistic symbiosis and to which extent it impacts on development, physiology and disease occurrence in case of dysbiosis. Hence the Center will mainly aim at establishing causality links by combining strong basic research set as “cellular microbiology” of the host-microbe mutualism, and clinical studies.
Our basic assumption is that it is during fetal life and the early post-natal period that the mother’s, then the child’s microbes can – directly or indirectly - most efficiently imprint on the fate of the baby through their capacity to sense, integrate and transmit positive and negative environmental influences. Understanding the physiological bases of this mutualistic symbiosis stemming from a long co-evolution between Homo sapiens and his microbes is prior to accessing to disease mechanisms.
Hence our multidisciplinary CMDH will largely focus on the time frame encompassing the first 1000 days of life that are critical to found body growth, immunity, neurodevelopment and health in general. In low-to-middle-income regions, poverty, malnutrition and sustained exposure to poor microbiological environments weaken this foundation with severe consequences such as earlier mortality and increased morbidities, loss of growth and altered neurodevelopmental potential. In high-income countries, the loss of traditional dietary rules and global hygiene (water, food), combined with uncontrolled use of antibiotics, alter the diversity of microbial taxa to which humans have been ancestrally exposed, hence creating conditions for increased incidence of asthma, allergy, obesity, diabetes, inflammatory bowel diseases and possibly some cancers.
CMDH will address three major lines of research Deciphering the basis of human gut microbiota maturation by ecological successions. This line will combine analyses of cohorts in collaboration with mother and child hospitals and basic microbiological studies analyzing the genetic, metabolic, nutritional and environmental constraints driving or altering its maturation and robustness.
(1) Understanding the role of the gut microbiota in maintaining a colonization barrier against pathogens.
(2) Evaluating the impact and deciphering the mechanisms by which the gut microbiota and its alterations affect, possibly program, child development, health and disease.
(3) Emphasis will be on impact on gut regeneration, immunological maturation, nutrition and metabolism, and brain development.
Cutting-edge technological platforms and animal facilities are available or will be further developed, particularly in imaging, metagenomics, metabolomics, culturomics and microfluidics / organ on chips / high-throughput screening.
With these aims, CMDH has already solidly established itself with a core of 13 group leaders and is concurrently actively recruiting in various areas to strengthen its expertise and establish a model of basic and translational multidisciplinary research offering ample opportunities for synergistic interactions.
CMDH was created with the strong belief that it needed an international base in order to foster the creation of an international network of collaborations. As a reflection of this aim, the 7 PIs who were recruited since CMDH opening came from UK, France, Singapore, USA, hence bringing their own network of international collaborations. In addition, several of the PIs from IPS that joined CMDH upon its creation brought solid international partnerships.
For more information about our Center, please visit our website: www.ips.ac.cn/CMDH
Prof. Philippe J. Sansonetti
Chief Scientist of the CMDH微生物、发育与健康研究中心首席科学家
IPS-CAS中国科学院上海巴斯德研究所
Shanghai, China上海,中国
是在中国科学院和上海市支持下，由上海巴斯德研究所新成立的，面向全球引进杰出人才，规划为具有重要国际影响力和科技产出健康研究中心。
在IPS的背景下，“微生物，发育与健康研究中心”旨在解决高收入地区出现的“后现代，非传染性流行病”，包括新生儿对感染的易感性以及影响该国人口的发育缺陷中低收入地区，重点是人类与微生物之间的相互作用在全球范围内持续恶化，在病因学上的作用。
新一代测序和生物信息学已将人类肠道菌群提升为发育，健康和疾病的重要驱动因素，肠道菌群和肠道微生态如何调节免疫功能和相关疾病，是目前生物学与医学交叉研究的最前沿。当前面临的重大挑战是理解共生的生物学基础，及共生菌对发育，生理，健康和疾病的影响。因此，该中心将整合国内外具有优秀基础的研究团队，充分利用上海地区乃至全国各地丰富的婴幼儿临床资源，结合研究所在肠道菌群、免疫遗传、单细胞组学等领域的优势，建立高质量的婴幼儿研究队列，从而开辟多种重大疾病的干预策略。
我们的基本假设是，在胎儿生命和产后早期，母亲，孩子的微生物可以通过其感知，整合和传播，以及环境影响，直接或间接地最有效地印在婴儿的命运上。在了解疾病机理之前，要了解人类与微生物之间长期共同进化所产生的这种共生的生理基础。
因此，我们的多学科中心将主要关注生命最初1000天的时间范围，这对于发现身体的生长，免疫力，神经发育和整体健康至关重要。在中低收入地区，贫困，营养不良和持续暴露于恶劣的微生物环境削弱了这一基础，并产生了严重后果，例如较早的死亡率和发病率，生长损失和神经发育潜能的改变。在高收入国家，传统饮食规则和全球卫生（水，食物）的丧失，加上抗生素的无节制使用，改变了人类祖先接触过的微生物分类单元的多样性，从而增加了哮喘、过敏，肥胖，糖尿病，发炎性肠病以及可能的某些癌症等的发病率。
该中心将解决三大研究领域：
(1) 通过生态演替来揭示人类肠道微生物群成熟的基础。该产品线将与母子医院合作对队列进行分析，并结合基础微生物学研究，分析驱动或改变其成熟度和健壮性的遗传，代谢，营养和环境限制。
(2) 了解肠道菌群在维持针对病原体的定殖屏障方面的作用。
(3) 评估肠道菌群影响对儿童发育，健康和疾病的影响并弄清其机制。其重点将放在对肠道再生，免疫系统的发育，营养和代谢以及大脑发育的影响上。
已有尖端技术平台和动物设施并将进一步发展，特别是在成像，多组学，代谢组学，培养组学和微流体学/芯片上的器官/高通量筛选方面。
为了实现这些目标，微生物，发展与健康研究中心已经组建了以13名研究组长为负责人的核心团队成员，并同时积极地面向全球在各个领域招募优秀人才，并建立了基础和转化性多学科研究的模型，为研究提供了奠定了坚实的合作基础。
CMDH的创建坚信要建立国际基础，以促进建立国际合作网络。为了实现这一目标，自CMDH成立以来招募的7名PI分别来自英国，法国，新加坡，美国，从而带来了自己的国际合作网络。此外，IPS的一些效绩指标在CMDH创立之初就加入了该计划，
带来了牢固的国际合作伙伴关系。
有关我们中心的更多信息，请访问我们的网站：www.ips.ac.cn/CMDH
Prof. Philippe J. Sansonetti
微生物、发育与健康研究中心首席科学家
中国科学院上海巴斯德研究所
上海,中国
