Following is a conversation with Dr Indrani Mukhopadhyay, a lecturer at the Institute of Medical Sciences Microbiology and Immunology Group at the University of Aberdeen.

Over the last ten years, we’ve started to understand more and more about why the virome is important in both health and disease. Indrani is an expert in the viral and has been involved in some of the seminal research to characterise profiles and help us understand why the virus is important. So if you're interested in that, this is a great episode for you.

We also spoke about probiotics and what a next-generation probiotic might be in terms of its composition, structure and function. We spoke about Indrani's career progression. She's been all over the world involved in exciting research and setting up her new lab recently here in Aberdeen. So we covered a range of topics.

Finally, we spoke about inflammatory bowel disease, how the viral elements of the microbiome might be important and how specific depletions of bacteria might be important too.

As always, I wanted to thank you, the listener, for tuning in and for supporting the podcast. It's fantastic to get the feedback we've been getting about people enjoying it and if you are enjoying it and haven't yet liked and subscribed, please do that.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:52 - How did you get into the field of the microbiome?

00:06:32 - Research into developing vaccines

00:12:58 - Effectiveness of vaccines

00:14:24 - Complexity of the rotavirus

00:16:28 - Seasonal flu

00:20:01 - Viruses in our gut

00:24:17 - Viral metagenomics

00:33:06 - Knowledge of viruses greater than of bacteria

00:35:53 - What’s the most important part of the microbiome?

00:37:06 - Bacteriophages

00:40:15 - Enteric viruses

00:41:29 - Fungus in the gut

00:42:39 - Viruses keep bacteria in check

00:43:07 - Most exciting development in microbiome research

00:46:10 - Women in science

00:47:00 - Immunomodulator’s effects on gut viruses.

00:49:23 - Next-generation probiotics

00:52:20 - Taking probiotic supplements

00:54:28 - Manufacturing bacteria to treat patients

00:55:39 - Benefits of single strain vs consortia

00:56:34 - Universally beneficial probiotic?

01:00:25 - Thanks and conclusion