Read the UCSF press release here!
The past 15 years have seen a revolution in scientists’ appreciation for how deeply our health is tied to the microbes that reside in our gut and throughout our bodies. Now, a $25 million gift from Marc and Lynne Benioff will establish a new UCSF Benioff Center for Microbiome Medicine dedicated to predicting and developing next-generation therapies for a wide range of diseases – from asthma and allergies to inflammatory bowel disease and obesity.
“This generous gift will accelerate the ability of our world-leading experts in the rapidly developing science of the human microbiome to develop a new generation of living cell therapies,” noted UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood, MBBS. “This is the perfect opportunity to leverage the exciting fundamental discoveries of the past decade and the clinical excellence found across the university in order to dramatically advance human health.”
This generous gift will accelerate the ability of our world-leading experts in the rapidly developing science of the human microbiome to develop a new generation of living cell therapies.
UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood
In recent years, a multitude of diseases have been linked to imbalances in the microbial ecology of the human body, and that the microbes that live in and on us – collectively known as our microbiome – provide critical contributions to human health. Initial clinical trials of treatments such as microbial transplants suggest that microbe-based therapies represent promising new therapeutic avenues for infectious, chronic inflammatory, and even neurological diseases.
“We are at the outset of a watershed moment in human biology,” said Susan Lynch, PhD, a UCSF professor of medicine who has been tapped to lead the UCSF Benioff Center for Microbiome Medicine. “We now understand that our health rests not only on the proper functioning of human genes, but also on the millions of genes and products of our microbiome. What’s more, these microbial populations are malleable – offering an opportunity to improve human health by re-engineering our microbiomes.”
In a complementary recognition of the field’s scientific maturity, the Benioffs are also donating $10 million to Stanford University to launch the Stanford Microbiome Therapies Initiative (MITI), which will focus on developing and testing new microbiome-based therapies based on engineered microbial communities.
In the new UCSF center’s first five years, Lynch and colleagues aim to develop precision therapies to restore damaged microbial ecosystems by boosting particular microbial activities to perform specific functions that promote health. They also aim to radically rethink the role of the microbiome in early life and develop new interventions aimed at preventing childhood diseases.
Susan Lynch, PhD, who will lead the new UCSF Benioff Center for Microbiome Medicine. Photo by Barbara Ries
Faculty engaged in microbiome research across campus have previously shown that our microbiome plays a key role in defining human health. For example, microbial dysfunction in the infant gut – characterized by the enrichment of particular microbial genes and their products – drive immune dysfunction and can be used to predict the development of allergy and asthma in childhood. Perturbed microbial ecosystems across the human body have been linked to autoimmune disease, metabolic syndromes such as obesity and diabetes, skin diseases, and even multiple sclerosis. Gut microbes can even contribute to metabolizing drugs and influence how much enters the circulation.
Leveraging this expertise and collaborations with UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in Oakland and San Francisco and institutions nationwide, the UCSF Benioff Center for Microbiome Medicine aims to develop a holistic understanding of our earliest interactions with microbes in utero, through birth, and in early life. These efforts aim to find ways of predicting and preventing not only asthma and allergy, but other childhood diseases – including dermatological, gastrointestinal, respiratory and neurological disorders.
“At the same time that we are developing therapeutic strategies to restore microbial ecosystems once they have been damaged,” Lynch said. “We also need to find ways to intervene in at-risk populations in very early life to prevent chronic diseases before they start.”