Living systems are shaped by dynamic interactions between microbes, host biology, diet, lifestyle, and the environment. At the Panagiotou Lab, we study these interactions through the lens of ecosystems medicine — an emerging framework that applies ecological and systems biology principles to human health and disease. Rather than viewing diseases as isolated events, we investigate how disruptions in microbial ecosystems drive transitions between health and pathology across multiple spatial and temporal scales.
Our research integrates microbiome, mycobiome, metabolomics, transcriptomics, immunomics, and clinical data to uncover the mechanisms underlying microbial ecosystem instability and resilience. By combining computational modeling with experimental and clinical research, we aim to identify the ecological rules governing host–microbe interactions and translate them into novel diagnostics, prognostics, and microbiome-based interventions.
A major focus of the lab is understanding how microbial communities transition under perturbations such as infection, inflammation, dietary change, obesity, cancer, and antimicrobial exposure. We investigate these processes in diverse contexts including fungal and bacterial infections, colorectal cancer, cancer cachexia, metabolic liver disease, and personalized nutrition. Across these areas, we seek to uncover how microbial dynamics shape disease progression, treatment response, and host physiology.
Our work spans both fundamental and translational science. We study microbiome dysbiosis and ecosystem instability in critically ill patients, explore fungal–bacterial interactions within complex microbiomes, identify microbiome-derived biomarkers for early disease detection, and investigate how diet and microbial metabolism jointly influence immune and metabolic health. We also examine how microbial ecosystems can be manipulated to restore healthy states and improve clinical outcomes.
These efforts are supported through multiple national and international initiatives, including the
Balance of the Microverse Cluster of Excellence,
Fellows4Fungi,
PerMICCion,
MiCCrobioTAckle,
M3-NAFLD, and
Nutrimmune.
Together, these projects contribute to a broader vision of medicine where microbial ecosystems become central to understanding, predicting, and ultimately preventing disease.
