Jack Gilbert is a rock star of microbiome research. But he didn’t start out on that path. As a university student, Gilbert studied marine ecology and envisioned himself one day working with dolphins. After traversing an arc that ran through London’s Natural History Museum, where he studied African butterfly species and bacteria that stop ice crystals from forming in Antarctica, Gilbert became fascinated with how microbial communities function. “It’s been a very weird ride,” he says.
Gilbert stuck with microbes as he earned his PhD from Nottingham University in the UK and continued his research career as a postdoc at Queens University in Canada. In 2010, he came to the US to become the director of the University of Chicago’s Microbiome Center. He also helped launch major collaborations such as the Earth Microbiome Project, the Home Microbiome Project, and the Hospital Microbiome Project. This year, Gilbert moved to the University ...
