TRI Seminar Series 

Presenter: Mark Morrison
Presentation title: Variations in the mucosa-associated microbiota throughout the gastrointestinal tract in health and disease. The Brisbane approach.      

Mark Morrison’s scientific expertise resides in the fields of microbial physiology, genetics and genomics, with a career-long focus on the gastrointestinal microbiota of humans and other herbivores. During his academic tenure in the USA, he led the team that produced the first genome sequences for gut Ruminococcus and Prevotella spp., with both genera now widely acknowledged to play a key role in establishing human gut “enterotypes”. He returned to Australia in 2006 as a CSIRO Science Leader, leading the gut health stream of their Preventative Health Flagship Program, and one of CSIRO’s five Capability Platforms (in Transformational Biology). He joined the University of Queensland Diamantina Institute in October 2013, and is currently science lead for gastrointestinal function with the Princess Alexandra Hospital’s Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, and the microbiome research for the new NHMRC CRE in Digestive Health. He is Australia’s science representative to the International Human Microbiome Consortium, and serves on other international academic and industry advisory boards for gut microbiome research. 

Presenter: Nida  Murtaza
Presentation title: Polyols are a key driver of Bifidobacteria niche expansion and the reduced bacterial richness observed with a moderate intake of food-borne prebiotics.    

Nida held a UQ International Fellowship and recently graduated with a Ph.D. from the research group of Professor Mark Morrison. Her PhD research focussed on the use of culture-independent DNA sequencing approaches to characterise diet x microbiota interactions in the general community and elite athletes. She currently is a postdoctoral research fellow with the Morrison (UQDI) and Gidley (QAAFI) groups for an ARC Linkage Project investigating how different forms of resistant starches affect gut microbial ecology and fermentation. 

Presenter: Jing Jie Teh
Presentation title: A novel ex vivo combination of microbe culture and metagenomic sequencing to functionally characterize the Crohn’s disease mucosa-associated microbiota.

Jing Jie Teh is a 2nd year PhD student at the University of Queensland Diamantina Institute with Professor Mark Morrison’s research group. He was awarded a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology (Honours) from UQ in 2017. His research interests involve applying culture-based, molecular and bioinformatic techniques to establish the structure and function of the gut microbiota in health and disease. He is a key member of the Eastern Inflammatory Bowel Disease Gut Microbiota (ENIGMA) project team, supported by the Helmsley Charitable Trust via the Australasian Gastrointestinal Research Foundation.