Fall Conable Lecture |The Global Microbiome
The Global Microbiome: Microbes and Public Health Beyond Biology
Humans have far more microbial cells on us than human ones, and our microbes digest our food, train our immune systems, influence our behaviors, and make us sick or healthy. Based on a decade-long collaboration with microbiome scientists, my research focuses on how a cross-disciplinary partnership between anthropology and biology is crucial in addressing global health crises like malnutrition. While my scientific collaborators studied the interrelationship between gut microbes and malnutrition with the goal of translational interventions, I explored ways to reconcile the scale and speed differences between the lab, the intimate biosocial practices of Bangladeshi mothers, and the looming structural violence of poverty, abysmal infrastructure, and profound inequality. Anthropology sheds light on the transnational and local realities of people embedded in global scientific research and health programs and is crucial to producing more ethical, effective biomedicine.
International
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Open to the Public
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