2023-10-17 15:38:26
Madrid
Madrid
Updated Tuesday, October 17, 2023 – 15:38
At this moment, as you read these lines, the universe of microorganisms that inhabits your intestine is immersed in frenetic activity. You are not aware, but the relationships maintained by that billion-dollar set of bacteria, viruses and fungi that live in your gut interest you. Because their health depends, to a large extent, on the outcome of their interactions, battles and coexistence pacts.
The state of the microbiota It influences our metabolism or the functioning of our immune system, but it also has a lot to say in how we respond to some therapies or our risk of developing some chronic diseases, as recent studies are demonstrating.
We know its role better and better. And this is thanks to researchers like Jeffrey Gordon, Bonnie L. Bassler y Peter Greenberg, pioneers in the study of these microorganisms with which we live. Gordon was the first to demonstrate the importance of nutrient exchange relationships between the microbiota and the host and Bassler and Greenberg highlighted, among other findings, the key role played by bacterial communication. This joint view earned them the 2023 Princess of Asturias Prize for Scientific and Technical Research last June.
“Their discoveries are allowing innovative therapeutic applications and the search for new effective treatments against antibiotic-resistant bacteria,” highlighted the jury, chaired by Pedro Miguel Echenique.
Just a few days before they go to Oviedo to collect the award, EL MUNDO chats with them.
From left to right, Bonnie L. Bassler, E. Peter Greenberg and Jeffrey Gordon.
The three scientists are excited, “honored” to receive this award that “is a recognition of all the talented students and colleagues with whom we have had the privilege of working over the years,” in the words of Jeffrey Gordon (New Orleans). , USA, 1947), biologist and director of the Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology at Washington University in St. Louis.
“All we have built a wonderful community around the shared belief that innovation and discoveries are born from environments of respectful, empathetic and mutually supportive collaboration, where we can all freely share ideas without fear of saying ‘I don’t know’. This award is a recognition of that environment of collaboration and empathy that we hope can contribute in the long term to improve human health through a deep understanding of the relationships between humans and the microbial communities that live in and with us“summarizes the researcher, who in 2019 received the Frontiers of Knowledge award from the BBVA Foundation in the Biology and Biomedicine category.
“This award validates the creativity, dedication and ingenuity of my team members and the importance of their discoveries. It recognizes the entire community of scientists in this field and realizes that what we do is important,” agrees Bonnie L. Bassler (Chicago, USA, 1962), biochemist and director of the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University.
“It is a great honor. It is incredible to receive this recognition,” adds Peter Greenberg (New York, USA, 1948), professor of Microbiology at the University of Washington, who emphasizes that, in addition to personal satisfaction, he feels a special joy because the prize will also mean an important collective boost for the area of research to which he has been dedicated for decades.
It gives us the opportunity to reach children, let them know the wonders of the microbial world and why it is so important to study microbes.
Peter Greenberg
“I am 74 years old. I continue working because I love what I do, but at this point in my career the award is not going to be a special boost for me. We are the face of an active and vibrant scientific field and this award attracts attention to this area, puts it in the focus of young aspiring microbiologists. And The more young minds come to our research area, the better we will be.“, he remarked.
In addition, Greenberg continues, this award also attracts the attention of biologists from other areas and even scientists from fields other than biology. “Our work, in many ways, is generalizable and is helping us understand the biology of communication and cooperation.”
“Our work can be instructive for scientists from other disciplines“adds the researcher, who does not want to fail to remember that the award “gives us the opportunity to reach children, schools, and let them know the wonders of the microbial world and why it is so important to study microbes.”
Greenberg claims to have not been a bright student in high school. “I barely graduated. But one class caught my attention, biology. We went on a field trip to the coast to study the pools left by the tide. And I was fascinated by marine creatures and their ability to survive in inhospitable environments.” From there, he remembers, he decided that he wanted to be a biologist, and during his university training, a microbiology course excited him. I never lost interest in understanding the particularities of the tiny world we live with.
At this point, Bassler highlights the fact that the award recognizes the importance of basic science, research that seeks to know the keys to what happens in our body or in nature without a predetermined clinical purpose.
“We had a hunch and followed it, starting with what might seem an unimportant curiosity, the glow produced by bacteria in the dark“, he recalls. That path, however, “led to a whole new understanding of microbes and the profound importance of their interactions, which had tremendous ramifications for human health,” he details.
Bassler refers to the studies that she and Greenberg independently carried out with the bioluminescent bacteria Vibrio fischeri and Vibrio harveyi, which, as they were able to determine, only produce light when they form large groups, thanks to communication through chemical signals.
Collective action is what bacteria need to successfully trigger an infection.
Bonnie L. Bassler
These are scientific demonstrated that the behavior of bacteria is different when they are in large groups, act under what is called quorum sensing, a phenomenon that allows them to communicate and carry out collective behaviors, as if they were ‘working’ in a group. In addition, the work of these researchers also revealed that bacteria of different species can also communicate through different signals, a key interaction for many processes.
“We know that this mechanism is the norm in the bacterial world,” Bassler emphasizes. His research, for example, has shown that quorum sensing is essential for pathogenic bacteria, because “a collective action is what bacteria need to be able to successfully trigger an infection,” she exemplifies.
“Our group discovered signals almost identical to the light control signals we were studying in a bacteria pathogen called Pseudomonas. This bacteria is capable of causing infections that are very difficult to treat in burned people, patients with immune disorders or people with a genetic disorder, cystic fibrosis, as well as in patients who have suffered an infection after the implantation of a medical device. Now we know that These signaling systems are very common in bacteria and there is intense interest in targeting them with the goal of being able to manipulate bacteria for the benefit of humans. The potential for applications is countless,” says Greenberg, who states that a great achievement would be to be able to “develop drugs that interfere with bacterial communication.”
The microbiome offers exciting new opportunities to identify disease-related mechanisms, find targets, and discover new therapeutic agents.
Jeffrey Gordon
Bassler’s group, in fact, has shown that it is possible to interrupt bacterial communication circuits through therapies based on small molecules that inhibit the virulence of some infections. “Since these compounds target bacterial behavior, not bacterial growth, These types of therapies are much less vulnerable to the development of resistance mechanisms like those produced by antibiotics,” says the researcher, who emphasizes that her work “provides surprising new avenues to combat pathogenic bacteria.”
The three award-winning researchers who will collect their Princess of Asturias Award in Oviedo next Friday agree that the future of this field of studies is more than promising. Many of the answers that explain why we get sick, What risk do we have of suffering complications or what are the reasons why our body sometimes does not respond to therapies are hidden in our intestine. We have begun to know the importance of the microbiome, but without a doubt in the coming years, We will know much better the role it plays in our health and how we can use it to our advantage.
Jeffrey Gordon accurately summarizes this hopeful horizon: “The microbiome offers fascinating new opportunities to identify mechanisms related to the disease, find new targets for treatments and discover new therapeutic agents.
And he adds that “working in this area of study crosses the traditional boundaries of scientific disciplines and is providing important advances in our understanding of how human physiology is shaped by microbial communities. “In addition, our understanding of the microbial contribution to noncommunicable diseases is also changing.”
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