Chemical Engineering Seminar Series
Title: The detection of pro-inflammatory genes in human stool samples-implications for cancer and other inflammatory disease
Speaker: Dr. Abel Baerga UPR – School of Medicine
When: October 16, 2014 10:30 am – 12:00 pm
Where: INQU Amphitheatre
Abstract. The intestinal environment of mammals is populated by a diverse and complex community of microorganisms, known collectively as the microbiota, which mediate many important biological processes. With the advent of new methods for parallel DNA sequencing, there has been a renewed interest in elucidating the role played by the intestinal microbiota in numerous disorders of the digestive tract. Along these lines of research, our group has detected a number of bacterial genes that have been implicated in inflammation directly in human stool samples. We will present our preliminary attempts to establish the link between these pro-inflammatory genes and diseases of the GI tract. We will also present some ongoing efforts to establish biochemical function for some of these genes.
Bio: Dr. Baerga obtained a BS in chemistry from the University of Puerto Rico. He then obtained a PhD in Chemistry and Biochemistry from the University of California, San Diego where he studied protein-protein interactions in the blood coagulation cascade. Afterwards he was a royal society postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Cambridge, investigation the biosynthesis of natural products. Currently he is an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry of the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine.