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、發育與健康研究中心首席科學家
IPS-CAS中國科學院上海巴斯德研究所
Shanghai, China上海,中國
是在中國科學院和上海市支持下，由上海巴斯德研究所新成立的，面向全球引進杰出人才，規劃為具有重要國際影響力和科技產出健康研究中心。
在IPS的背景下，“微生物，發育與健康研究中心”旨在解決高收入地區出現的“后現代，非傳染性流行病”，包括新生兒對感染的易感性以及影響該國人口的發育缺陷中低收入地區，重點是人類與微生物之間的相互作用在全球范圍內持續惡化，在病因學上的作用。
新一代測序和生物信息學已將人類腸道菌群提升為發育，健康和疾病的重要驅動因素，腸道菌群和腸道微生態如何調節免疫功能和相關疾病，是目前生物學與醫學交叉研究的最前沿。當前面臨的重大挑戰是理解共生的生物學基礎，及共生菌對發育，生理，健康和疾病的影響。因此，該中心將整合國內外具有優秀基礎的研究團隊，充分利用上海地區乃至全國各地豐富的嬰幼兒臨床資源，結合研究所在腸道菌群、免疫遺傳、單細胞組學等領域的優勢，建立高質量的嬰幼兒研究隊列，從而開辟多種重大疾病的干預策略。
我們的基本假設是，在胎兒生命和產后早期，母親，孩子的微生物可以通過其感知，整合和傳播，以及環境影響，直接或間接地最有效地印在嬰兒的命運上。在了解疾病機理之前，要了解人類與微生物之間長期共同進化所產生的這種共生的生理基礎。
因此，我們的多學科中心將主要關注生命最初1000天的時間范圍，這對于發現身體的生長，免疫力，神經發育和整體健康至關重要。在中低收入地區，貧困，營養不良和持續暴露于惡劣的微生物環境削弱了這一基礎，并產生了嚴重后果，例如較早的死亡率和發病率，生長損失和神經發育潛能的改變。在高收入國家，傳統飲食規則和全球衛生（水，食物）的喪失，加上抗生素的無節制使用，改變了人類祖先接觸過的微生物分類單元的多樣性，從而增加了哮喘、過敏，肥胖，糖尿病，發炎性腸病以及可能的某些癌癥等的發病率。
該中心將解決三大研究領域：
(1) 通過生態演替來揭示人類腸道微生物群成熟的基礎。該產品線將與母子醫院合作對隊列進行分析，并結合基礎微生物學研究，分析驅動或改變其成熟度和健壯性的遺傳，代謝，營養和環境限制。
(2) 了解腸道菌群在維持針對病原體的定殖屏障方面的作用。
(3) 評估腸道菌群影響對兒童發育，健康和疾病的影響并弄清其機制。其重點將放在對腸道再生，免疫系統的發育，營養和代謝以及大腦發育的影響上。
已有尖端技術平臺和動物設施并將進一步發展，特別是在成像，多組學，代謝組學，培養組學和微流體學/芯片上的器官/高通量篩選方面。
為了實現這些目標，微生物，發展與健康研究中心已經組建了以13名研究組長為負責人的核心團隊成員，并同時積極地面向全球在各個領域招募優秀人才，并建立了基礎和轉化性多學科研究的模型，為研究提供了奠定了堅實的合作基礎。
CMDH的創建堅信要建立國際基礎，以促進建立國際合作網絡。為了實現這一目標，自CMDH成立以來招募的7名PI分別來自英國，法國，新加坡，美國，從而帶來了自己的國際合作網絡。此外，IPS的一些效績指標在CMDH創立之初就加入了該計劃，
帶來了牢固的國際合作伙伴關系。
有關我們中心的更多信息，請訪問我們的網站：www.ips.ac.cn/CMDH
Prof. Philippe J. Sansonetti
微生物、發育與健康研究中心首席科學家
中國科學院上海巴斯德研究所
上海,中國
