In the gut, dozens of strains of bacteria exert different effects on the immune system that in turn impact our health – fending off pathogens, helping digest food and maybe even influencing behavior. But pinpointing which bacteria exert which effects has been challenging. Better understanding this process could lead to a powerful way to treat a host of diseases.
For developing a method by which to zero in on individual gut bacterium's impacts on T cells , Kazuki Nagashima, a senior research scientist at Stanford University, is the winner of this year's NOSTER & Science Microbiome Prize, which rewards innovative research by young investigators working on attributes of the microbiota with potential to guide therapeutic interventions. Nagashima's work showed that – contrary to what has been thought – some T cells in the gut can interact with multiple bacteria. "This discovery presents a therapeutic opportunity to skew gut immune reaction [in therapeutically useful ways]," said Nagashima in his prize-winning essay.
"For the NOSTER/Science Prize, 2024 has been a truly blockbuster year in more ways than one," said Caroline Ashle, senior editor at Science . "It is heartening to see such high quality science from a new generation of extremely motivated young scientists, who succeed in doing fantastic research despite today's huge challenges." Nagashima's prize-winning work, published in Nature in 2023, followed earlier efforts to build a synthetic human gut microbiome from scra.