As director of the Rutgers-based New Jersey Institute for Food, Nutrition, and Health, Maria G. Dominguez-Bello is leading a major organizational hub for interdisciplinary research that merges relevant disciplines to address crucial problems in nutritional sciences, globally. The institute oversees a spectrum of translational activity ranging from basic research to community outreach. The breadth of its activities is reflected in the diversity of its research centers, thematic programs, and student services.

Dominguez-Bello’s role as the Henry Rutgers Professor of Microbiome and Health also is multidisciplinary. She studies early life assembly of the microbiome, effect of perturbations, loss of diversity with urbanization, and restoration approaches. She also looks at how Westernization changes environmental microbes and human exposures, integrating the fields of anthropology and architecture/urban studies into microbial ecology. She has carried out research in South America (Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia) and Africa (Tanzania).

She is currently exploring the antimicrobial effects of residuals in water on the microbiota, which will contribute to understanding the link between antimicrobials and urban diseases. She also is studying the microbiomes of isolated peoples, away from practices including antibiotics, C-sections, and hygienic behaviors that may impact microbial populations. She is looking at the community structure and function of the bacterial populations from traditional peoples and their protective effect against current epidemic diseases of the modern urban world. Learn more about Dominguez-Bello.