Hannah Lynn
Program: Molecular Cell Biology
Current advisor: Jeffrey I. Gordon, MD
Undergraduate university: University of Pennsylvania
Research summary
Children with undernutrition have immature development of their gut microbiota compared to children with normal nutrition status. Current therapeutic foods used to treat children with undernutrition provide high levels of calories and nutrients. However, these foods were not developed with the gut microbiota in mind and children treated with these foods often remain stunted as adults. The lab hypothesized that it may be possible to see more complete recovery in undernourished children by feeding them with food staples that promote gut microbiota maturity. Various diets, called microbiota directed complementary foods (MDCFs), were created and tested in preclinical studies in mice and pigs. Then, a clinical trial was conducted in humans and revealed that a lead MDCF resulted in improvements in human growth signaling pathways and increased fitness of favorable bacteria in the gut.
With these results in mind, my project has two main goals: 1. Identify the bioactive components of the food staples that are leading to the observed favorable changes in gut microbiota maturity and growth signaling pathways 2. Develop even better MDCFs using sustainable, affordable, and culturally acceptable food staples from countries around the world with high burdens of undernutrition
Graduate publications
Hibberd MC, Webber DM, Rodionov DA, Henrissat S, Chen RY, Zhou C, Lynn HM, Wang Y, Chang HW, Lee EM, Lelwala-Guruge J, Kazanov MD, Arzamasov AA, Leyn SA, Lombard V, Terrapon N, Henrissat B, Castillo JJ, Couture G, Bacalzo NP Jr, Chen Y, Lebrilla CB, Mostafa I, Das S, Mahfuz M, Barratt MJ, Osterman AL, Ahmed T, Gordon JI. 2024 Bioactive glycans in a microbiome-directed food for children with malnutrition. Nature, 625(7993):157-65.
Chang HW, Lee EM, Wang Y, Zhou C, Pruss KM, Henrissat S, Chen RY, Kao C, Hibberd MC, Lynn HM, Webber DM, Crane M, Cheng J, Rodionov DA, Arzamasov AA, Castillo JJ, Couture G, Chen Y, Balcazo NP Jr, Lebrilla CB, Terrapon N, Henrissat B, Ilkayeva O, Muehlbauer MJ, Newgard CB, Mostafa I, Das S, Mahfuz M, Osterman AL, Barratt MJ, Ahmed T, Gordon JI. 2024 Prevotella copri and microbiota members mediate the beneficial effects of a therapeutic food for malnutrition. Nat Microbiol, 9(4):922-37.
Mostafa I, Fahim SM, Das S, Gazi MA, Hasan MM, Saqeeb KN, Mahfuz M, Lynn HB, Barratt MJ, Gordon JI, Ahmed T. 2022 Developing shelf-stable Microbiota Directed Complementary Food (MDCF) prototypes for malnourished children: study protocol for a randomized, single-blinded, clinical study. BMC Pediatr, 22(1):385.
Chen RY, Mostafa I, Hibberd MC, Das S, Lynn HM, Webber DM, Mahfuz M, Barratt MJ, Ahmed T, Gordon JI. 2021 Melding microbiome and nutritional science with early child development. Nat Med, 27(9):1503-06.