Department of Biology

From Prehistory to Precision: Using the Neanderthal Oral Microbiome to Develop Oral Microbiome Transplantation

Dr. Laura Weyrich
PennState

January 26, 2024
3-4 pm

Hosted By Dr. Gwen Robbins Schug

Over 90% of Americans will develop dental decay in their lifetime, and over 80% of American adults will suffer from periodontal disease. Effective treatments that leverage evolutionary relationships between oral microorganisms and health are desperately needed to change the way we understand, prevent, and treat modern oral disease. Studies of ancient calcified dental plaque (calculus or tartar) reveal oral microbiome diversity that is largely lost in the modern world and can be insightful for designing effective oral microbiome transplantation – a novel concept of transplanting dental plaque from an ultra-healthy donor to a recipient to ideally improve health. This talk will explore much of the recent work on non-Industrial oral microbiomes, explored through both ancient dental calculus and ongoing work with non-Industrial communities today, to understand how to develop and engineer effective donor oral microbiota. The new ideology and experimentation for oral microbiome transplantation technology will also be discussed in this context, providing new ways to leverage the past to improve health in the future.