Flow Cytometry and Cell Sorting of the Intestinal Microbiota

About the Speaker

Jakob Zimmerman, PhD
University of Bern
Department for BioMedical Research

Dr. Zimmermann obtained his PhD in the lab of former ISAC president Andreas Radbruch at the German Rheumatism Research Center in Berlin, Germany, working on Th cells in the pathogenesis of IBD, while also establishing new methods for the flow cytometric interrogation of the intestinal microbiota. As a postdoctoral fellow supported by a Marie-Curie fellowship by the European Commission, he moved to the lab of Andrew Macpherson at the University of Bern, Switzerland, to further specialize in host-microbe mutualism. As an ISAC Marylou-Ingram scholar, he is currently leveraging the power of bacterial flow cytometry when combined with the robustness of defined gnotobiotic model microbiotas.

Webinar Summary

The intestinal microbiota has been implicated in nearly all aspects of human health, yet our mechanistic understanding of these microbial consortia and their interaction with the host remains superficial. This webinar shall address how flow cytometry and cell sorting of gut bacteria can contribute to deepen this knowledge. It’ll involve key advantages over other techniques, examples for its application as well as practical guidance and pitfalls when doing microbiota flow cytometry.

Learning Objectives

Attendants should learn how flow cytometry can contribute to research on the intestinal microbiota and which questions can best be answered using microbiota flow. Topics that will be discussed include how gnotobiotic mice with defined microbiotas can be leveraged for robust microbiome research and why they are particularly powerful when combined with microbiota flow cytometry and cell sorting. A key learning objective is also how to do microbiota flow cytometry and sorting as well as important controls and potential pitfalls.

Who Should Attend

As the gut microbiota affects almost all human (and mouse…) organ systems, the webinar is targeted at immunologists and cancer researchers just as much as at microbiologists and microbiota scientists.

CMLE Credit: 1.0