Sungwhan Oh

Symbiotic microbiota residing on the body surface (gut lumen, skin and other areas) easily outnumbers our own cells and dwarfs our genome by hundred folds with their metagenome.  Large-scale research projects such as Human Microbiome Project have provided in-depth demographic and spatial information of microbiota-nonetheless, how our microbial tenants contribute to host physiology and pathology in the complex context of host-microbiota-environment interactions remains elusive.

As critical mediators of host-microbiota communication, we are interested in metabolites produced by symbionts. By synergizing orthogonal approaches of metabolomics, microbiology and immunology, we focus on assigning novel structures and elucidating functions of these small molecules, which may regulate host immune development as well as determine host susceptibility and resistance to the various immune diseases.