The Boston University Microbiome Initiative brings together scientists from different disciplines and departments, with a common interest in microbial ecosystems. Our research spans multiple scales and levels of complexity, with applications in global change, metabolic engineering, and biomedicine.

Our goals are: (1) To develop multi-level mechanistic understanding of how microbe-microbe and microbe-environment interactions determine microbial community dynamics, diversity and stability. (2) Use systems biology approaches, physics-based theory, experimental studies of molecular processes, and microbiome data analysis to analyze specific communities that span multiple scales – from host-associated microbiome, to complex microbial communities involved in global biogeochemical cycles. (3) To combine fundamental principles of microbial ecology with synthetic biology approaches to design artificial microbial communities, with biomedical, environmental and metabolic engineering applications.