In April 2016, the microbiome clubs of MIT and Harvard partnered to hold the inaugural MIT-Harvard Microbiome Symposium, with generous support from the MIT Center for Microbiome Informatics and Therapeutics. We hosted two keynotes speakers: Yvonne Huang of University of Michigan spoke on asthma phenotypes and the respiratory microbiome, and Elaine Hsiao of UCLA spoke on microbiome gut-brain interactions. More than 300 people attended, with 20 research poster presentations.
Our 2nd symposium in March 2017 was just as successful. We featured Harvard’s Rachel Carmody on dietary manipulations of the gut microbiome and Virginia Commonwealth University’s Jasmohan Bajaj on gut-brain axis perturbations in liver cirrhosis as our keynote speakers.
Our 3rd annual symposium brought together researchers and clinicians from the Boston area together to share the latest research in the microbiome and human health featuring 2 keynote speakers: Ami Bhatt from Stanford University and Julia Oh from the Jackson Laboratory and four flash talks by Richard Creswell, Claire Duvallet, Mathieu Groussin and Daniel Utter.
At our 4th annual symposium in 2019, we hosted Caroline Mitchell from Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard Medial School and Katherine Amato from Northwestern University as our two keynote speakers, and had flash talks presented by David Gootenberg, Kellyanne Duncan, Shaul Pollak, and Jamila Caplan Kester.
Our 5th annual symposium was scheduled for April 2020, featuring keynote speakers Professor Suzanne Devkota (University of California Los Angeles) and Professor Christina Warinner (Harvard University). The 2020 symposium was cancelled due to COVID-19.
Our 2021 symposium was held virtually in April 2021 and featured keynote speakers Professor Christina Warinner and Professor Eric Martens. Flash talks were presented by Caroline Taouk, Wenshan Zheng, Carlos Ceballos-González, and Emilie Skoog.
Our 2022 symposium was held in April 2022, and was our first hybrid symposium. We hosted Professor Gretchen Diehl from Memorial Sloan Kettering and Professor Elizabeth Johnson from Cornell as our two keynote speakers. Flash talks were presented by Nicola Kriefall, Tabita Ramirez-Puebla, Arolyn Conwill, and Khyati Girdhar.
Our 2023 symposium was held in April 2023 and featured keynote speakers Professor Shipra Vaishnava from Brown and Professor Paul Turner from Yale. Flash talks were presented by Gavin Kuziel, Aman Kumar, Tess Brunner, and Kathryn Atherton.
About our sponsors: CMIT & MIT Microbiome Club
The MIT Microbiome Club, part of the Center for Microbiome Informatics and Therapeutics, brings together inquisitive MIT undergrads, grad researchers, postdocs, faculty, and clinicians in the emerging field of microbiome studies and microbiome-based medicine. Learn more on our LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, and Twitter.