Karen Guillemin

Guillemin is an internationally recognized leader who is developing new paradigms to define host-microbe interactions. Her discovery of a novel bacterial protein, conserved in human microbiota, required for host pancreatic beta cells development is highly regarded. She demonstrated that microbes manipulate host signaling pathways to influence intestinal cell fate, that bacterial motility and intestinal biogeography profoundly affect host functions, and that a host-associated bacterium can cause transmissible cancer. New tools she developed provide an important community resource for genetic manipulation of host-associated bacterial species. Also laudable is her establishment of an interdisciplinary center pioneering zebrafish to study how microbiota influence normal development.