Rob Knight’s TED Talk: How Our Microbes Make Us Who We Are

Robert Knight at TED2014 – The Next Chapter, March 17-21, 2014, Session 5 – Us, Vancouver Convention Center, Vancouver, Canada. Photo: James Duncan Davidson Microbial Ecologist Rob Knight’s is passionate about exploring the microbial world that exists everywhere in and on our bodies. His 2014 TED Talk, How our microbes make us who we are, explains the basics. This talk led to his writing the charming and useful little book Follow Your Gut (Knight, 2015) that I wrote about a few weeks ago. From the TED Speakers website: Why you should listen Using scatological research methods that might repel the squeamish, microbial researcher Rob Knight uncovers the secret ecosystem (or “microbiome”) of microbes that inhabit our bodies — and the bodies of every creature on earth. In the process, he’s discovered a complex internal ecology that affects everything from weight loss to our susceptibility to disease. As he said to Nature in 2012, “What motivates me, from a pragmatic standpoint, is how understanding the microbial world might help us improve human and environmental health.” Knight’s recent projects include the American Gut, an attempt to map the unique microbiome of the United States using open-access data mining tools and citizen-scientists to discover how lifestyle and diet affect our internal flora and fauna, and our overall health. What others say “Faeces, lizards, keyboards, faces — Rob Knight likes to sequence the microbes on anything and everything. Next, he plans to sequence Earth.” — Nature, July 11, 2012 You can watch his TED Talk here. YOUR CHANGING MICROBIOME

(Source: learn.genetics.utah.edu)

REFERENCES Hardin, J.R. (2015). Short, Easy Read about Your Gut Microbiome. See: http://allergiesandyourgut.com/2015/04/10/short-easy-read-about-your-gut-microbiome/ Knight, R. (2014). TED Talk: How our microbes make us who we are. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-icXZ2tMRM Knight, R. with Buhler, B. (2015). Follow Your Gut: The Enormous Impact of Tiny Microbes. A TED Original Book. See: http://www.amazon.com/Follow-Your-Gut-Enormous-Microbes/dp/1476784744 TED Speakers. (undated). Rob Knight’s TED Talk, How our microbes make us who we are. See: https://www.ted.com/speakers/rob_knight © Copyright 2015 Joan Rothchild Hardin. All Rights Reserved.

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