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Center for Microbial Medicine
The Center for Microbial Medicine at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is dedicated to finding cures and improving pediatric health through the lens of the microbiome. Our transformative vision enables researchers and clinicians to leverage the microbiome to improve children’s health by moving discoveries quickly from bench to bedside.
Our center is the premier pediatric center in the United States focused on translational microbiome-based medicine, providing opportunities to partner with new initiatives across CHOP and the University of Pennsylvania. These initiatives include neurobiology, cancer therapy, immunotherapy, immune health, and more, with potential to affect pediatric medicine across all disciplines, diseases, and disorders.
The Center for Microbial Medicine will focus on the following goals:
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Microbiome-informed Clinical Decisions
The research team will leverage sequencing and advanced analytical techniques, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, to inform clinical decisions in patients using the microbiome. This will include using the microbiome as an early biomarker of disease, a predictor of success or failure of treatments such as cancer therapy, and an indicator of post-procedure complications or infection.
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Data-related Partnerships
Our computational core will generate tools to overcome limitations associated with big-data and the complexity of the microbiome. Our team will partner with ARCUS to integrate patient data into analytical pipelines for personalized microbiome-based medicine.
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Microbiome-based Therapeutics
Our team will develop cutting-edge microbiome-based drugs, called live biotherapeutic products (LBPs), for pediatric patients. We aim to harness the potential of the microbiome to treat disease and augment therapies through LBPs:
- Treat infectious disease
- Augment cancer therapy
- Enhance immunotherapy
- Prevent complex infections in high-risk patients
- Support treatments for inflammatory disorders
- Treat metabolic disorder
- Affect outcomes for diseases and disorders associated with the gut-brain axis.
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Conduit for Clinical Trials
Experts from the fields of basic and clinical microbiome research will collaborate to develop clinical trials in the pediatric microbiome medicine space.
The Center for Microbial Medicine will empower researchers to turn their discoveries in the microbiome space into therapeutic products for patients.
Leaders
Robert N. Baldassano, MD
Co-Director
Paul J. Planet, MD, PhD
Co-Director
Joseph P. Zackular, PhD
Co-Director
Ahmed M. Moustafa, PhD
Associate Director
Cornerstone Blog
This year’s Poster Day and Scientific Symposium featured all manners of bugs, breakthroughs, and big discoveries.
Cornerstone Blog
The first model of the early-life microbiome helps researchers identify pre- and post-weaning microbial changes that affect immune system development.
Cornerstone Blog
Researchers in the Planet Lab discuss a unique method they developed to categorize and track multiple strains of SARS CoV-2.