Season 2, Ep. 6: Infection Biomes | Prof. Brett Finlay

Infectious diseases have largely been replaced by chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer in the Western world. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that humans are still at significant risk from microbial-diseases. In this episode, Dr. Ruairi Robertson speaks with Prof. Brett Finlay from University of British Columbia, one of the world’s leading experts on infectious diseases. Prof. Finlay discusses his career studying infectious microbes and how this led him to shift focus to all of the other microbes in our body. He discusses the influence of the gut microbiome on infection susceptibility, fulfilling Koch’s postulates for the gut microbiome and the influence of early life gut microbes on ‘modern plagues’ such as asthma and allergies.   Prof. Finlay is one of the scientific co-founders of Microbiome Insights along with Dr. Bill Mohn. Between them, they have published more than 600 peer reviewed papers and they provide key scientific guidance to the Microbiome Insights team. Find out more at  www.microbiomeinsights.com.

Om Podcasten

As a human being, you are not a single organism but a thriving ecosystem home to trillions of invisible, living microbes. These microbial jungles within you and upon you are critical for your health and survival and may influence everything from your risk of cancer to your sexual attractiveness. In this podcast series (Biomes), Dr. Ruairi Robertson explores the fascinating new developments in our understanding of the human microbiome and talks to leading scientific experts around the world about the incredible ways microbes affect your body, from belly to brain.