Dr. Kable is interested in the mechanisms governing how diet impacts the bacterial composition of the human gut and how these diet-bacterial interactions can influence human health. In particular, she is interested in how dietary fiber can affect the composition of the gut microbiota in such a way as to increase or decrease colonization resistance and susceptibility to food borne pathogens.
Kable Lab activities are currently focused on (1) characterization of the gut microbiota in a healthy human cohort and potential interactions between this composition and the long term dietary habits of healthy individuals, (2) optimization of methods for medium through-put culture of diverse gut microbiota, (3) in vitro fermentation of complete gut microbiota and individual bacteria from healthy human subjects with various food components, especially dietary fiber.
