Michael Ferris, PhD

Understanding the the ecology of complex microbial communities can provide insight into their relationship to human health and disease. We study the ecology and diversity of microbial populations in natural environments by searching for patterns in their distributions and abundance and correlating these with environmental and physiological parameters that might account for the observed distributions. For example, bacterial species composition differs between the inflammatory gut environment of premature infants with necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and premature infants without NEC . To assess species composition, we rely heavily upon computers, bioinformatics, phylogenitics, statistics and, most notably, molecular biological techniques, such as PCR, quantitative real time PCR and genetic sequence analysis of SSR rRNA and other genes, since inferences drawn from the study of conventional enrichment culture isolates alone are generally not adequate for describing microbial diversity and ecology in natural habitats. The "environments" and microbial communities we study are quite diverse. Some of the habitats of current interest include the human gut and vaginal epithelium, as well as fresh and salt water marsh habitats in South Louisiana.