Exploiting the microbiome to treat pediatric diseases

Dr. Surana completed his undergraduate education at Indiana University where he received degrees in Biochemistry, Economics, and Biology. He subsequently received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Washington University in St. Louis where his doctoral work blended microbial pathogenesis, structural biology, and host-commensal interactions to elucidate mechanisms of protein secretion in gram-negative bacteria. After completing clinical training in general pediatrics and pediatric infectious diseases at Boston Children's Hospital, Dr. Surana studied the nexus between the microbiota and the host immune system in the laboratory of Dennis Kasper at Harvard Medical School, where Dr. Surana was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics. The Surana lab innovatively integrates gnotobiotic murine models, immunology, and microbiology with the ultimate aim of identifying immunomodulatory commensal bacteria and subsequently characterizing their immunological effects. He has recently developed an innovative approach for identifying with high specificity organisms within the microbiota that are causally related to the phenotype of interest. He has used this approach of microbe-phenotype triangulation to discover Clostridium immunis, a new bacterial species that protects against colitis, and two bacterial species that induce host expression of a critical antimicrobial peptide.