Executive Editor

Prof. Allen-Vercoe received her Ph.D. in Molecular Microbiology from the Open University (UK) as part of an industrial partnership with the Veterinary Laboratories Agency and the Centre for Applied Microbiological Research (now Public Health England). After postdoctoral studies at the University of Calgary, Canada, she was awarded a Fellow-to-Faculty transition grant from the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology, and she used this to found her independent research career studying the human gut microbiome, which she brought to the University of Guelph in 2008. Prof. Allen-Vercoe is the recipient of several awards for innovation and outreach and is currently the Canada Research Chair in Human Gut Microbiome Function and Host Interactions. Prof. Allen-Vercoe’s research focuses on the microbial ecology of the human gut, and she runs one of the few laboratories in the world equipped to culture the often highly fastidious and anaerobic microbes found in the human gut, both axenically and as part of defined, complex communities (using bioreactor technology). She was a contributor of many isolates to the Human Microbiome Project strain collection, and she participates in several ongoing efforts to standardize the measurement of the microbiome. Her research projects have been funded both nationally and internationally and include studies of the microbiome in Type 1 and 2 diabetes, colorectal cancer, and inflammatory bowel diseases, as well as more recent work to characterize the so-called VANISH (Volatile and/or Associated Negatively with Industrialized Societies of Humans) microbes of hunter-gatherer tribes in Amazonia. Prof. Allen-Vercoe has a long-standing interest in the biology and host interactions of the Fusobacteria and was part of the group that first recognized F. nucleatum as a potential oncomicrobe in colorectal cancer. She has published over 100 research works, and her lab has been featured in several documentaries (TV and radio), and the popular press. In 2013, Prof. Allen-Vercoe co-founded NuBiyota, a company that has developed several live microbial products as therapeutics to treat several human diseases. She serves as the CSO of this company and continues to innovate methods to select and stabilize microbial ecosystems for use as ‘Microbial Ecosystem Therapeutics’ drug products.

Gut microbiome, Anaerobic bacteriology, Fusobacteria, Ecosystem therapeutics, Colorectal cancer, VANISH microbes, Bioreactor fermentation, Metabonomics