Center of Excellence in Microbiome Sciences

An alarm bell dinged, and Fernanda Sato dashed to the oven to remove a steaming tray of eggs. The University of Maryland master’s student was preparing breakfast in a campus kitchen for a half-dozen people dropping off samples from previous meals—in a manner of speaking.

Nutrition and food science students with UMD’s College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences are conducting an experiment on 24 participants, anchored by a typical American diet: egg and cheese croissant sandwiches, flour tortillas and crackers, for example. Because the menu largely eschews fruits, fiber and whole grain, it’s not the gold standard of nutrition, and that’s the point.

The meals lack catechins, a natural antioxidant chemical found in certain foods and beverages like apples, fava beans, sweet potatoes, blackberries, dark chocolate, green tea and red wine and thought to support heart health. The researchers want to confirm that premise, but they also suspect that only some eaters reap the biggest nutritional rewards of catechins, and they want to know why.

During a testing period that ended last week, participants hewed to low-catechin diets for three days, but half consumed catechin-rich cranberry-apple juice throughout the period while a control group drank a placebo drink made with sugars and artificial flavors and coloring.

Before and after the regimen, each participant submitted stool and urine samples. In the coming months the UMD team will probe the now-frozen specimens, looking for biomarkers of catechin digestion—a good sign—and compare it to participants’ blood pressure and body composition.

“Some people’s gut bacteria can metabolize the catechins to a greater extent so that they’re absorbed into the bloodstream, as opposed to, forgive me, just pooping it out,” explained Associate Professor Margaret Slavin, who is leading the UMD study, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

After eating their on-campus breakfasts, participants left with freezer bags packed with low-catechin lunches, dinners and snacks prepared by UMD students in Slavin’s lab. The menu included turkey and cheese wraps, soybean nuts and meatloaf, mashed potatoes and glazed carrots. (Each participant spent one week in the intervention group and one week in the control group.)

Recruited through campus flyers offering cash compensation, most participants appeared to be students, though Slavin didn’t ask. After gathering data about their typical diets, her team devised a menu with similar foods.

Last Monday, Sato arrived at the industrial-size kitchen lab in Marie Mount Hall at 6 a.m., donned an apron and hairnet and began prepping breakfast. After graduation she plans to launch a career as a clinical dietitian for hospital patients with diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other health issues, assessing their nutrition status and recommending diets.

After the eggs had been scrambled and baked twice, Sato removed them from the oven and took their temperature—“185 degrees, we’re good,” she said—and passed the tray to another student who measured 120-gram portions into serving cups.

In an adjacent kitchen Nora Baustian, a second-year doctoral student, filled each participant’s take-home freezer bag, including instructions on when to drink the beverages. (For the intervention group, spreading catechin consumption throughout the day increases potential absorption.)

Shortly after 8 a.m., Baustian carried a platter of eggs, roasted peppers and buttered toast into a classroom doubling as a dining room and served it to Tereza Varejkova, a UMD economics doctoral student who joined the study in part because of her interest in nutrition. There was also a personal benefit, she said: “It’s nice not to think about cooking.”

On the first day and day after the diet, participants dropped off their stool and urine samples, which will eventually be shipped out for lab analysis. Slavin’s team will break down the data in hopes of publishing its findings next year.

The study grew out of an earlier data collection phase starting in 2023, when 180 people consumed a soy-based snack that distinguished them as either “producers” and “nonproducers” of catechin-related metabolites. A mix of 24 participants moved on to the current study.

The results could help dietitians personalize diets based on microbial makeup. If someone knows their gut can metabolize catechins, they could consume foods and beverages with higher levels. For other people, scientists might find ways to change their microbial composition or develop metabolite supplements, Slavin said.

“Right now, nutritionists give blanket advice to consume certain food groups, like getting plenty of vegetables and fruits—this is valid based on what current evidence says,” said Slavin, who is a member of the UMD Center of Excellence in Microbiome Sciences. “But in the future, if we know that some people get more health benefits from certain foods, we could better target our recommendations to meet their individual needs.”

—Story by John Tucker for Maryland Today

More than 140 participants representing industry, government and academia recently met in Baltimore to explore topics related to innovation and translation in microbiome research.

The 7^th annual Mid-Atlantic Microbiome Meet-up, held on March 21 at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, highlighted ongoing microbiome research tied to human and animal health, agriculture, bioengineering, the environmental sciences, and more.

Co-hosted by the Center for Advanced Microbiome Research and Innovation (CAMRI) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the Center of Excellence in Microbiome Sciences at the University of Maryland, the one-day symposium featured two keynote talks, nine oral presentations and 42 poster presentations.

Just as important, say the event organizers, was the opportunity for participants from diverse scientific backgrounds—federal scientists, academic researchers and industry leaders involved in the biotech sector—to network and discuss possible collaborations.

“I was blown away by the breadth of the research presented at the meet-up and the level of participation by researchers exploring these topics,” says Mihai Pop, a professor of computer science at UMD who is helping lead microbiome research efforts on the UMD campus. “This demonstrates the important role microbial communities play in virtually all aspects of our lives.”

Pop noted that this year’s meetup drew participants from 10 higher education institutions, two research institutes, four federal institutions, and the American Society for Microbiology.

In the opening keynote, Susan Lynch, a professor of medicine from the University of California, San Francisco, spoke about the role of microbiome in allergic disease in infants. Lynch showed that early-life microbial exposures may drive the onset of asthma and eczema in infants, and proposed potential microbial-related therapies to address these important childhood conditions. 

The meet-up concluded with a presentation by Benjamin Wolfe, an associate professor from Tufts University, who spoke about the microbiome of fermented foods. Wolfe described the role microbes play in the fermentation processes used to produce many commonly-used foods (such as sourdough, cheese, kombucha, and more), and highlighted evolutionary and community design principles discovered in his laboratory that can be leveraged to manage microbial communities used in food production. 

The meeting was organized by CAMRI and was co-sponsored by Maryland Genomics, QIAGEN, AmpSeq and Symcel.

—Story by UMIACS communications group