Photo: Stephen J. Serio
Jeffrey Gordon, MD, a distinguished university professor at Washington University in St. Louis often referred to as the “father of microbiome research,” and recipient of the 2024 Mechthild Esser Nemmers Prize in Medical Science, visited Feinberg’s campus to deliver the keynote lecture on September 30.
The Nemmers Prize in Medical Science is awarded to a physician-scientist whose body of research exhibits outstanding achievement in their discipline as demonstrated by works of lasting significance.
Gordon, who is the Dr. Robert J. Glaser Distinguished University Professor and director of the Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has pioneered research that has transformed the understanding of the gut microbiome and how it shapes human health.
Gordon’s groundbreaking work in childhood undernutrition led to the discovery of “age-discriminatory” bacterial strains which are present at different stages of growth in healthy infants and children, defining a shared normal gut microbiota development taking place largely during the first two years of life.
By transplanting microbiota from these children and their healthy counterparts into germ-free mice, Gordon identified bacterial strains that promote lean body mass gain and affect bone development, metabolism and immune function. Gordon and his collaborators then developed food prototypes designed to boost the critical bacterial strains in Bangladeshi children who lacked them.
Gordon’s research greatly expanded the understanding of the gut microbiome, how it develops in undernourished children and its relationship to overall health.
Rex Chisholm, PhD, vice dean for Scientific Affairs and Graduate Education, welcomed attendees to this year’s lecture by introducing Gordon and giving an overview of Northwestern’s five Nemmers Prizes.
“By utilizing interdisciplinary approaches for understanding how the gut microbiome contributes to disease and health conditions, Gordon’s research has founded a widely-used paradigm for establishing causal relationships between microbiome structure and function and health status, identifying therapeutic targets in the microbiome, and for developing ways to alter microbiome properties,” Chisholm said.
During his lecture, Gordon highlighted the complexity of childhood undernutrition, which is not solved simply with existing nutritional supplements.
“The public is becoming increasingly aware of the microbiome. As such, there’s a need to approach bench-to-bedside translation and to engage in a proactive societal dialogue about the ethical, legal, social, safety and regulatory issues raised by this research,” Gordon said. “We’re seeing the microbiome as a way of expanding our understanding of the human condition since, in so many respects, the microbiome reflects the very ways that we live.”
Gordon discussed how the food prototypes developed by his laboratory successfully repaired healthy gut microbiota in Bangladeshi children experiencing undernutrition, which eased the associated long-term developmental effects better than currently available ready-to-use therapeutic foods.
To conclude the lecture, Eric G. Neilson, MD, vice president for Medical Affairs and Lewis Landsberg Dean, presented Gordon with a medallion in commemoration of receiving the Nemmers Prize.
“Thank you for this wonderful endorsement of the field of microbiome research,” Gordon said. “Please think about the intersection between food science, microbiome science and nutrition at this time when feeding one another healthy foods is going to be so important and so challenging in the face of climate change and all the geopolitical disruptions that are occurring.”
About the Nemmers Prize
The Mechthild Esser Nemmers Prize in Medical Science, which carries a $350,000 stipend, was made possible by a generous gift to Northwestern by the late Erwin Esser Nemmers and the late Frederic Esser Nemmers. A jury of distinguished scientists from around the country made the final selection.