Jeffrey I. Gordon is the Dr. Robert J. Glaser Distinguished University Professor and Director of the Center for Genome Sciences & Systems Biology at Washington University School of Medicine.
Gordon pioneered the field of the genomic and metabolic foundations of the relationships between humans and their gut microbes. His application of large-scale DNA sequencing and his use of germ-free mice as a model system has revealed that these microbes can influence diverse aspects of the human condition. He and his present and former students have shown that the microbome contributes to obesity and malnutrition, the normal and abnormal development of the immune system and the efficacy of therapeutic drugs.
Through his work we now appreciate that we are a community in which our human selves live in intimate association with tens of trillions microbial cells (Bacteria and Archaea), the microbiome, which collectively harbor one-hundred times more genes of different kinds than the genes in the human genome. Gordon is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and its Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a winner of the Robert Koch Prize and the Selman A. Waksman Award in Microbiology of the National Academy of Sciences.
