This week I am enjoying my first international conference on the human microbiome. This transition from plant microbiome to human microbiome has been challenging, I have to absorb an impressive amount of immunology and biochemistry knowledge, which was hidden deep in my previous undergraduate biology understanding.

The conference (Keystone) is in Banff and we are staying at the Fairmont which, I must say, is incredible. My poster session was filled with interesting interactions with fellow researchers in the human microbiome field also working on interkingdom interactions.

The University of Calgary is well represented at the meeting with all fantastic four PI of the microbiome core group present (Drs. Arrieta, Sycuro, McCoy, and Geuking), ass well as Dr. Hirota.

I think there is still a lot of improvement needed regarding the integration of real ecology in microbiome research. For what I see researchers use ecological buzz words but don’t investigate the concepts.