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Co-founder to present at Pharmabiotics Conference 2021 on benefits of modern taxonomy

Microba Life Science’s Co-founder and renowned Microbiologist, Professor Philip Hugenholtz will present a Roundtable Topic at the Pharmabiotics Conference on April 29, 2021 (CET) and discuss the benefits of modern taxonomy to accelerate microbiome therapeutic discovery.

The two-day event will feature live presentations from leading academics, KOLs, clinicians and members of the human microbiome industry and feature a biotech showcase.

Roundtable Panel discussion

In the roundtable titled “What’s in a name: resolving taxonomy to accelerate microbiome therapeutic discovery,” Professor Hugenholtz will explain the benefits of using the genome-based GTDB taxonomy for the identification of microbiome therapeutics.

Professor Hugenholtz will also discuss approaches to using new tools and data in research and explain the risks and benefits of the different approaches to taxonomic classification.

“With the emergence of whole shotgun metagenomic sequencing, access to a broader and deeper knowledge of the human microbiome has been uncovered,” Professor Hugenholtz explained.

“Metagenome-Assembled Genomes have dramatically expanded the number of species recognised by researchers in this field and this has highlighted the deficiencies in the historical classification approaches and highlighted the requirement for a better classification.

“The genomic-based approach of the GTDB has improved the resolution, calculation and visualisation of metagenomic taxonomy.”

Co-founder and microbiologist, Professor Phil Hugenholtz

Attendees of the roundtable will hear from Professor Hugenholtz on the benefits and impacts of these taxonomic changes, along with how and what therapeutics developers can do to take advantage of this space.

Approach to therapeutic discovery

Also featuring at the event is a presentation from Microba’s Chief Scientific Officer, Associate Professor Lutz Krause, who will discuss the human-first, data-driven approach to therapeutic discovery that Microba employs in their therapeutic program targeting Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Associate Professor Lutz Krause is an internationally recognised expert in the application of machine learning to microbiome big data and oversees biostatistics at Microba. His current work involves identifying therapeutic leads and developing diagnostics using artificial intelligence for unmet clinical needs.

This event will assist the industry in understanding the benefits of increased resolution and accuracy of measuring the gut microbiome at a genomic level which can lead to accelerated microbiome-based therapeutic discovery by reducing false positives and false negatives and increasing species and strain resolution.

Microba provides accurate, high-resolution precision microbiome analysis, with a focus on microbiome-derived diagnostics and therapeutics to create life-changing medical innovation. The company also provides end-to-end analysis for international research clients.

For more information on the pharmabiotics conference or to register to attend see: https://www.pharmabioticsevent.com/

About the event

The Pharmabiotics Conference takes place annually and is the brainchild of the Pharmabiotics Research Institute (PRI) of Europe, which is a not-for-profit collaborative effort to drive the accessibility of live biological products to the pharmaceutical market. The PRI is Europe’s leading microbiome regulatory science expertise center and was founded in 2010 to support the development of microbiome-based medicines for the EU market, for the benefit of patients. It applies a unique ‘Share & Learn’ approach to overcome the complex and various regulatory challenges faced by the relevant stakeholders. Its overall mission is to facilitate the conversation between European regulators and Microbiome medicinal product developers and their partners, and to become the key network of stakeholders driving the new therapeutic and diagnostic innovation in the field of microbiome science. Found out more about the 2021 online event running 28-29 April here: https://www.pharmabioticsevent.com/