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Jonathan Jacobs, MD, PhD
Dr. Jacobs’ research program focuses on characterizing host-microbiome interactions in patients with gastrointestinal, metabolic, and inflammatory disorders using a combination of human association studies and animal models, including humanized gnotobiotic mice. This evolved initially from several translational microbiome studies he performed investigating the mucosal microbiome and metabolome of inflammatory bowel disease patients compared to healthy family members or unrelated controls, stratified by genetic traits. These studies required the development and refinement of efficient pipelines for 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing, metabolomics, and bioinformatics analysis of multi’omics datasets. He established the Microbiome Core for the UCLA Microbiome Center to offer a range of microbiome-related services to the local research community. This core became affiliated with the UCLA Specialized Center of Research (SCOR) in Neurovisceral Sciences and Women’s Health led by Emeran Mayer and Lin Chang. Through this collaboration, his laboratory assumed responsibility for sample processing, 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing, and bioinformatics analysis for initial SCOR studies on sex differences in the brain-gut-microbiome axis of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) patients and healthy controls, and their relationship to symptom severity and psychological parameters. This research led to a publication in Microbiome linking microbiome features to brain structural parameters and unpublished work was presented at last year’s Digestive Diseases Week showing that the gut microbiome predicts response of IBS patients to cognitive behavioral therapy.
The current proposal would build upon these collaborations to establish a unique research program within the UCLA Center for Neurovisceral Sciences and Women’s Health dissecting sex differences in brain-gut-microbiome pathways underlying IBS. He serves as co-lead of the Data Processing and Analysis Core, with primary responsibility for microbiome analyses across all three projects and joint responsibility with his co-Leads, Jennifer Labus and Arpana Gupta, for integrative bioinformatics analyses bridging the microbiome, metabolome, neuroimaging, and clinical parameters. This exciting research would draw upon his extensive background in microbiome bioinformatics and experience as Director of the UCLA Microbiome Core.
Publications
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/browse/collection/48438874
Johanna Jarcho, PhD
My research program bridges the areas of clinical, development, and social affective neuroscience. We study brain function and social-cognitive processes (i.e., interacting with others) that evolve during adolescence. I build on concepts from mental health research by examining the boundaries between normal and abnormal behavior, to determine how such processes manifest when people are feeling rejected or accepted by others. I study these processes in healthy adolescents and adults, and those who have, or are at risk for, anxiety disorders. I am particularly interested in early childhood temperament and exposure to peer victimization, because these can lead to developing psychological disorders. One way I study this is with functional neuroimaging (fMRI). We image the brain when individuals think that their peers are evaluating them. This allows us to investigate brain function as it relates to social learning, prediction error processing, and fear of negative evaluation. Another focus of my current research uses eye tracking to assess whether anxious adolescents and adults pay more attention to different aspects of a social situation as they try to decide what their peers are thinking and feeling. Results from this work will establish whether paying more attention toward specific facial features predict the ability to accurately “read” social situations, and whether these patterns vary across development or psychological disorders.
UCLA Psych-Social 1285 Franz Hall Los Angeles CA 90095
Zhiguo Jiang, PhD
Swapna Joshi, PhD
Dr. Joshi is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the G Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience (CNSR) at UCLA. She has worked with Dr. Chang (co-director of grant) on pathophysiologic mechanisms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) for the past 8 years. Her research focuses on bioinformatic analysis to study brain-gut-microbiome axis in IBS. Her research aims at understanding molecular mechanisms that mediate environmental effects on disease phenotype. Dr. Joshi’s expertise includes analysis and integration of gut microbiome, epigenetic and gene expression data, with specific training in the key research areas. She has published articles in various high profile journals including Nature. As a Co-Investigator on the CNSR’s NIH SCOR and PI on a NIH/CURE pilot seed grant, she is involved in conducting various studies geared at investigating sex differences and molecular pathways associated with IBS. Additionally, she collaborates extensively with groups sharing similar interests and produces several peer-reviewed publications from each project.
Publications
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/1DiGdqyzem5Ai/bibliography/40052990/public
10833 Le Conte Ave CHS 42-210 MC737818 Los Angeles CA 90095-7378 United States