Candidate: Andrew M. Heekin
Program: PhD Bioinformatics & Computational Biology 

Date:   Tuesday June 21, 2011
Time:   10:00 a.m. 
Place:  George Mason University
 	     Occoquan Bldg. Room 203
	     Prince William campus
  
Dissertation Chair: Dr. Patrick Gillevet
Committee members: Dr. Jason Kinser, Dr. Huzefa Rangwala

Title: "Characterization of the Human Gastrointestinal Microbiome
Via Metabolic Pathway Analysis"

The dissertation is on reserve in the Johnson Center Library, Fairfax campus.
The doctoral project will not be read at the meeting, but should be read in advance. 
All members of the George Mason University community are invited to attend.


ABSTRACT: 
This dissertation presents a novel computational pipeline combining several
computational approaches to quantify changes, when compared to healthy controls,
that occur in the microbiome of subjects with various diseases: obesity, Cohn's Disease (CD),
and Ulcerative Colitis (UC). By analyzing samples from diseased individuals and healthy
individuals, classifiers are constructed that discriminate between a healthy gut microbiome
and a dysbiotic gut microbiome.
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