Professor

Canada Research Chair in Interdisciplinary Microbiome Research

Medicine, Gastroenterology

905-525-9140 ext. 21964

surette@mcmaster.ca

Michael Surette, a professor of medicine and one of Canada’s top microbiologists, is shedding new light on why some microbes keep us healthy while others cause illness, what role our microbes play in chronic diseases, how the microbiome develops and changes across the lifespan, and how changes with age affect susceptibility to disease.

While it is often stated that most of the microbiome is not accessible by laboratory culturing methods, Surette's lab has challenged this assumption. His pioneering approach combining culture-enriched molecular profiling with state-of-the-art genome sequencing allows his laboratory to routinely grow more than 99.9% of bacterial populations, and typically recovers 2-3 times the diversity of bacteria than recovered by molecular profiling alone.

These approaches are being used to investigate specific diseases such as cystic fibrosis, asthma, ulcerative colitis, and irritable bowel syndrome, and to address fundamental questions about microbe-microbe/host interactions. Exploiting beneficial properties of the human microbiota holds promise for the development of new microbiome-derived therapies for the treatment of a wide range of conditions impacted by the health of our microbiota.

Professor

Canada Research Chair in Interdisciplinary Microbiome Research

Medicine, Gastroenterology

905-525-9140 ext. 21964

surette@mcmaster.ca

Michael Surette, a professor of medicine and one of Canada’s top microbiologists, is shedding new light on why some microbes keep us healthy while others cause illness, what role our microbes play in chronic diseases, how the microbiome develops and changes across the lifespan, and how changes with age affect susceptibility to disease.

While it is often stated that most of the microbiome is not accessible by laboratory culturing methods, Surette's lab has challenged this assumption. His pioneering approach combining culture-enriched molecular profiling with state-of-the-art genome sequencing allows his laboratory to routinely grow more than 99.9% of bacterial populations, and typically recovers 2-3 times the diversity of bacteria than recovered by molecular profiling alone.

These approaches are being used to investigate specific diseases such as cystic fibrosis, asthma, ulcerative colitis, and irritable bowel syndrome, and to address fundamental questions about microbe-microbe/host interactions. Exploiting beneficial properties of the human microbiota holds promise for the development of new microbiome-derived therapies for the treatment of a wide range of conditions impacted by the health of our microbiota.

Professor

Canada Research Chair in Interdisciplinary Microbiome Research

Medicine, Gastroenterology

905-525-9140 ext. 21964

surette@mcmaster.ca

Michael Surette, a professor of medicine and one of Canada’s top microbiologists, is shedding new light on why some microbes keep us healthy while others cause illness, what role our microbes play in chronic diseases, how the microbiome develops and changes across the lifespan, and how changes with age affect susceptibility to disease.

While it is often stated that most of the microbiome is not accessible by laboratory culturing methods, Surette's lab has challenged this assumption. His pioneering approach combining culture-enriched molecular profiling with state-of-the-art genome sequencing allows his laboratory to routinely grow more than 99.9% of bacterial populations, and typically recovers 2-3 times the diversity of bacteria than recovered by molecular profiling alone.

These approaches are being used to investigate specific diseases such as cystic fibrosis, asthma, ulcerative colitis, and irritable bowel syndrome, and to address fundamental questions about microbe-microbe/host interactions. Exploiting beneficial properties of the human microbiota holds promise for the development of new microbiome-derived therapies for the treatment of a wide range of conditions impacted by the health of our microbiota.