Research: Microbiome research

About our research

Microbes do not live and function in isolation. They form diverse and complex microbial communities, or microbiota, associated with specific parts of the human body such as gut or lung microbiomes. We now realise that the human microbiota play important roles in human health and disease.

We work with clinical and academic partners, within Greater Manchester, the UK, and internationally, to study and understand the roles of the lung microbiota in infection within chronic lung diseases. This includes:

• cystic fibrosis (CF)

• non-CF bronchiectasis

• chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

We also investigate the roles of the gut microbiota in conditions such as cystic fibrosis and chronic pancreatitis.

We exploit ecological approaches alongside improved developments in high-throughput sequencing technologies. This allows us to understand within-host interactions that shape the composition and functioning of human microbiota, and ultimately alter host health.

Genomics

Our core genomics facility delivers a wide range of sequencing-based projects from microbiome studies.

It helps to capture big data information on bacterial, archaeal, fungal, and other microbial eukaryotes in clinical and environmental settings, as well as population-based sequencing of different microbial species.