Dissertation Defense Announcement
To:  The George Mason University Community

Candidate: Naga Sridhar Betrapally

Program: PhD in Bioinformatics & Computational Biology



Date:   Thursday December 7, 2017

Time:   2:00 PM
Place:  George Mason University
             Science & Tech campus

             Bull Run Hall, Room 256



Title: "Systems Biology Analysis of the Cirrhotic Microbiome"
Committee Chair: Dr. Patrick Gillevet
Committee Members:  Dr. Saleet Jafri, Dr. Donald Seto, Dr. Ancha Baranova

All are invited to attend the defense.
ABSTRACT:
The human gut microbiota is one of the most complex communities that play a significant role on the health of an individual. The goal of this study was to analyze the alterations in the gut microbiota in individuals with cirrhosis and compare it to the microbiome community of healthy subjects. Microbiome data from the V1 and V2 regions of the 16S ribosomal genes were analyzed using the QIIME tool and RDP 11 pipeline to determine the structure of the gut microbiota. The effects of a PPI therapy and the role played by the dysbiosis in cirrhotics were thoroughly studied. The Gut-Liver-Brain Axis was accessed by reviewing the correlations and the overall impact of the human microbiome on homeostasis. Finally, a comparison of USEARCH and UCLUST algorithms was carried out in order to understand the importance of the selection of the clustering method for the functional interpretation of the microbiome data collected.

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