Ara Katz
Co-Founder, Co-CEO
Dr. Janet Jansson brings more than 30 years of expertise in microbial ecology to the table–with a specialty in the complex microbial communities of soils, sediments, and the human gut. Dr. Jansson is Chief Biology Scientist for the Earth and Environmental Sciences Directorate, Laboratory Fellow at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and the leader of the Microbiomes in Transition Initiative at PNNL. Additionally, she is Co-Principal Investigator of a ‘Science Focus Area’ for the U.S. Department of Energy in Phenotypic Response of the Soil Microbiome to Environmental Perturbations, meaning she studies the impact of climate change on the microbiomes of soil. Dr. Jansson is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the Washington State Academy of Sciences and formerly the President of the International Society for Microbiology (ISME).
Studying adversely affected microbial communities in various ecosystems has led her to work on a number of environmental projects, including researching the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its impact on water, beach and sediment communities. She is currently studying the impact of climate change on microbial communities in prairie and arctic ecosystems, including a focus on the warming of permafrost soil microbiomes. Of note, her sequencing studies have illustrated the critical role soil microbes play in breaking down pollutants.
In her research on the human body and microbiome, she looks at the long-term impacts of antibiotics on the gut, as well as the impact of inflammatory bowel disease and diet on functions carried out by the gut microbiome.
Key Publications:
Gilbert J A, Jansson J K, Knight R. “Earth microbiome project and global systems biology.” mSystems, 3(3). pii: e00217-17, 2018 Apr 10. Web 2018 May-Jun. Accessed 2018 June 4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29657969. DOI: 10.1128/mSystems.00217-17.
Gilbert J A, Blaser M J, Caporaso J G, Jansson J K, Lynch S V, Knight R. “Current understanding of the human microbiome.” Nat Med, 24(4):392-400, 2018 Apr 10. Accessed 2018 June 4. DOI: 10.1038/nm.4517.
Thompson LR, Sanders JG, McDonald D, Amir A, Ladau J, Locey K, Prill RJ, Tripathi A, Gibbons SM, Ackermann G, Navas-Molina JA, Janssen S, Kopylova E, Vázquez-Baeza Y, González A, Morton JT, Mirarab S, Zech Xu Z, Jiang L, Haroon MF, Kanbar J, Zhu Q, Jin Song S, Kosciolek T, Bokulich NA, Lefler J, Brislawn C, Humphrey G, Owens SM, Hampton-Marcell J, Berg-Lyons D, McKenzie V, Fierer N, Fuhrman JA, Clauset A, Stevens RL, Shade A, Pollard KS, Goodwin KD, Jansson JK, Gilbert JA, Knight R; Earth Microbiome Project Consortium. “A communal catalogue reveals Earth’s multiscale microbial diversity.” Nature, 551(7681):457-463, 2017 Nov 23. Web 2017 Nov 1. Accessed 2018 June 4. DOI: 10.1038/nature24621.
Maier TV, Lucio M, Lee L H, VerBerkmoes N C, Brislawn C J, Bernhardt J, Lamendella R, McDermott J E, Bergeron N, Heinzmann S S, Morton J T, González A, Ackermann G, Knight R, Riedel K, Krauss R M, Schmitt-Kopplin P, Jansson J K. “Impact of dietary resistant starch on the human gut microbiome, metaproteome, and metabolome.” MBio, 8(5). pii: e01343-17, 2017 Oct 17. Accessed 2018 June 4. DOI: 10.1128/mBio.01343-17.
Handley K M, Piceno Y M, Hu P, Tom L M, Mason O U, Andersen G L, Jansson J K, Gilbert J A. “Metabolic and spatio-taxonomic response of uncultivated seafloor bacteria following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.” ISME J, 11(11):2569-2583, 2017 Nov. Web 2017 Aug 4. Accessed 2018 June 4. DOI: 10.1038/ismej.2017.110.
Halfvarson J, Brislawn C J, Lamendella R, Vázquez-Baeza Y, Walters W A, Bramer L M, D’Amato M, Bonfiglio F, McDonald D, Gonzalez A, McClure E E, Dunklebarger M F, Knight R, Jansson J K. “Dynamics of the human gut microbiome in inflammatory bowel disease.” Nat Microbiol, 2:17004, 2017 Feb 13. Accessed 2018 June 4. DOI: 10.1038/nmicrobiol.2017.4
Snijders A M, Langley S A, Kim Y M, Brislawn C J, Noecker C, Zink E M, Fansler S J, Casey C P, Miller D R, Huang Y, Karpen G H, Celniker S E, Brown J B, Borenstein E, Jansson J K, Metz T O, Mao J H. “Influence of early life exposure, host genetics and diet on the mouse gut microbiome and metabolome.” Nat Microbiol, 2:16221, 2016 Nov 28. Accessed 2018 June 4. DOI: 10.1038/nmicrobiol.2016.221.
Jansson J K, Baker E S. “A multi-omic future for microbiome studies.” Nat Microbiol,1:16049, 2016 Apr 26. Accessed 2018 June 4. DOI: 10.1038/nmicrobiol.2016.49.
Gilbert J A, Quinn R A, Debelius J, Xu Z Z, Morton J, Garg N, Jansson J K, Dorrestein P C, Knight R. “Microbiome-wide association studies link dynamic microbial consortia to disease.” Nature, 535(7610):94-103, 2016 Jul 7. Accessed 2018 June 4. DOI: 10.1038/nature18850.
Jansson J K, Prosser J I. “Microbiology: The life beneath our feet.” Nature, 494(7435):40-1, 2013 Feb 7. Accessed 2018 June 4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23389537. DOI: 10.1038/494040a.