What are your gut bugs telling you to do? And gender in the lab

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Today

What fly guts could reveal about our health: microbes in the gut can influence diet and reproduction, and the changes could be passed on to the next generation.

Discoveries from Macquarie University and Sydney University illustrate how microbes in the gut can influence host animals. The work could be important for understanding the effects of the gut microbiota on physiology and cognitive function in humans in the future. More below.

And the final day at the Chemistry Congress in Melbourne:

Gender in the lab: is science inclusive and how do we stop women leaving academia?

Half of Australia’s university science students are women, and yet only 21 per cent of the professors teaching them are too. What can we learn from a British bloke to change this?

“It is not my job to correct the inequitable distribution of domestic labour in heterosexual couples. It is my job to make the Imperial College London Department of Chemistry the most successful it can be,” says Professor Tom Welton.

And he’s getting the results to back that up. More below.

Also

  • Using renewable energy to make more sustainable fertilisers: Professor Doug MacFarlane from Monash University is looking at direct reduction of nitrogen to ammonia.
  • Testing for disease and clean water with your phone: La Trobe researchers want to smash the cost of testing.
  • The Nobel Laureate who transformed how our fuels, plastic and drugs are made: now he’s tackling acid rain by getting the sulphur out of diesel.
  • UK to ban petrol cars, we need better batteries: ANSTO/Wollongong researchers tracking ions.

If you’d like to arrange an interview, contact Suzannah Lyons on suzannah@scienceinpublic.com.au

We’ll be tweeting news and interesting content from the Congress from @RACI_HQ and using #RACI100.

For more stories visit www.scienceinpublic.com.au

For information about the Congress itself, visit the website: www.racicongress.com.

 

 

What fly guts could reveal about our health

  • Diet choice, reproduction of fruit flies affected by gut bacteria
  • Two Macquarie researchers are co-authors on a pair of intriguing papers about gut bacteria.

The two new studies reveal that the gut bacteria composition affects nutritional choices as well as reproduction using common fruit flies as a model system.

The discoveries provide an exciting illustration into how microbes in the gut can influence host animals, which could be important for understanding the effects of the gut microbiota on physiology and cognitive function in humans in the future. 

Dr Fleur Ponton, is the last author on both studies and is based at Macquarie University’s Department of Biological Sciences.

“Beyond the biomedical significance of this research, there are potential interesting applications in the context of invasive and pest species control,” she says.

Macquarie University has a long history in pest control and hosts the Australian Research Council Centre for Fruit Fly Biosecurity Innovation.

The papers were co-authored by researchers from Macquarie University’s Department of Biological Sciences and the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre and report that that the gut microbiota of the common fruit fly has a significant effect on their foraging behaviour and reproductive success, and that its influence can be carried down to the next generation.

Published in Current Biology, the study into foraging behaviour manipulated the type and timing of bacteria individual flies were exposed to, and examined their olfactory-guided preferences to food microbes and nutrients.

In addition to foraging for nutrients to achieve a balanced diet, the researchers found flies also forage for bacteria to populate a healthy gut flora. Responding to smells associated with particular bacteria in foods, the flies showed a distinct preference for more beneficial types of bacteria over less-beneficial types or food lacking the bacteria. These responses were influenced by bacteria already present in the gut.

In a separate study, published in Biology Letters, researchers inoculated flies with different types of bacteria to observe the consequences of changes in the gut bacteria composition of sexually interacting fruit flies.

They found the reproductive investment and success of a mating pair was influenced by gut bacteria, as well as the body mass of offspring.

Lead author Dr Juliano Morimoto, now at Macquarie University, says the findings reveal the effect of gut microbiota on reproduction, but also suggest these effects can be carried over to the next generation.

“Given the importance of the gut microbiota in physiology and health, our findings reveal important and long-lasting effects of gut bacteria on reproduction and offspring traits,” he said.

“As understanding of the gut microbiome and its effect increases, the potential for breakthroughs in understanding broader health impacts increases too.”

Professor Stephen Simpson, Academic Director at the Charles Perkins Centre and a co-author on both papers, said, “This demonstration that bacteria in the gut influences foraging and reproductive behaviour is of particular interest for further research.”

The two studies involved researchers from Macquarie University, The University of Melbourne, Oxford University, University of Florida, Federal University of Parana, University Paul Sabatier.

Thank you to Rachel Fergus at The University of Sydney for her contribution to this story.

Read more about the gut microbiome at http://sydney.edu.au/charles-perkins-centre/our-research/current-research/nutrition/gut-microbiome.html

Read more about pest control at www.fruitflyittc.edu.au

Media enquiries
For University of Sydney
Rachel Fergus, 02 9351 2261, 0478 316 809 rachel.fergus@sydney.edu.au
For Macquarie University
Niall Byrne, 04117 131 977, niall@scienceinpublic.com.au

 

 

Gender in the lab: is science inclusive and how do we stop women leaving academia?

Half of Australia’s university science students are women, and yet only 21 per cent of the professors teaching them are too. What can we learn from a British bloke to change this?

“It is not my job to correct the inequitable distribution of domestic labour in heterosexual couples. It is my job to make the Imperial College London Department of Chemistry the most successful it can be,” says Professor Tom Welton.

And he’s getting the results to back that up.

Tom led the team at the Imperial College London Chemistry Department to a gold Athena Swan Award for promoting gender equality. He has just been awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for ‘diversity in education’.

Tom knows there is no genetic predisposition for men to be better than women at chemistry, so the fact that his department’s leadership team of 20 people was entirely white and had only one woman concerned him.

“Australia and the UK both suffer from a ‘leaky pipeline’, with a disproportionate number of women leaving academia at all career stages. This loss of female talent is a loss for science and broader society,” he says.

Tom instituted a series of changes to reverse that trend, including changes to recruitment practices, transparency in decision-making, unconscious bias training, and additional support for those who have taken parental leave to get their research back up to speed.

”You want your gender equity action plans to be things you can make a difference on,” he says. “The things you can’t control or influence fall into the category I call ‘a waste of bloody time’.”

Tom’s been asked if promoting women in science has been a distraction from the Chemistry Department’s core work. His firm answer is that there’s a strong business case, not just a moral case, for supporting women in science.

“We’re now performing better on many research metrics and in international league tables. We’re an employer of choice, and our research income has increased dramatically.”

He approaches women in science as part of broader ‘inclusivity efforts’—he is himself from a disadvantaged blue-collar background in the UK, has a disability and is openly gay, so he has his own personal perspective on inclusivity.

“Inclusivity is about differences being shared and explored, not being feared. Recognise you have a diverse community,” says Tom.

If you’d like to arrange an interview, contact Suzannah Lyons on suzannah@scienceinpublic.com.au.