Branco Weiss Fellow Since
2024
Research Category
Microbial Systems Ecology, Computational Biology
Research Location
Institute of Microbiology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Background
Microbes are deeply intertwined with the function of all ecosystems. Rather than living in isolation, these microbes engage in a multitude of different interactions with each other and their hosts, forming complex communities known as microbiomes. Recent research has allowed us to associate the composition of a microbiome – e.g., which microbes are present or absent – with host or environmental states like disease. However, we have yet to understand how interactions between microbes scale up and contribute to their function at the ecosystem level. Addressing this challenge would allow us to rationally modulate and design microbiomes with specific functions, which can be applied to support the health and resilience of their hosts. This potential is especially promising for plants, as climate change and environmental degradation urgently require new solutions to safeguard crop health and global food security.
Details of Research
Dr. Alan Pacheco seeks to design microbiomes that can support plant health. By first obtaining a thorough understanding of the metabolic interactions within a laboratory plant microbiome, he will generate computational models to propose combinations of microbes that can confer protection against a bacterial pathogen. Dr. Pacheco will then test these combinations in plants to reveal the features of plant microbiome interactions that underly effective protection. This process will produce a tested methodology to obtain detailed insights into microbiome function and apply them to host and environmental health. Specifically, this framework for model-guided design will be applied to modulate crop-associated microbial communities, broadening our understanding of the mechanisms that underly plant health and resilience in an agricultural context.
