How your gut bacteria could help detect pancreatic cancer early
Falk Hildebrand and Daisuke Suzuki explain why stool-based microbial signals may help researchers develop earlier, non-invasive approaches to pancreatic-cancer detection.
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Microbial communities
Microbial communities
genes to ecosystems.
We study which microorganisms are present in a community, how their populations change and how community structure relates to host or environmental conditions. The work combines metagenomics, comparative genomics, numerical ecology and method development.
From a mixed sample to ecological insight.
Microbiomes contain a vast number of organisms, genes and interactions. Rather than treating that complexity as noise, we build ways to resolve it: connecting reads to genomes, genomes to strains, and strains to the ecological processes that shape them.
We work across human, soil and environmental microbiomes, with a particular interest in how microbial variation can inform health, disease and a more precise understanding of ecosystem function.
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Microbial diversity
Finding the organisms and genetic potential that remain uncatalogued.
Much of microbial diversity remains invisible to standard reference collections. We use metagenome-assembled genomes, marker-gene references and high-resolution strain analysis to identify organisms in human and environmental samples, then place their genes and functions in biological context.
This work moves microbiome research beyond broad taxonomic labels towards the organisms and variants most relevant to a person, population or ecosystem, while recognising how sampling, extraction and reference choice shape what can be detected.
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Microbial evolution
Watching genomes change on ecologically meaningful timescales.
Microbial populations are not fixed entities. They gain and lose genes, diversify within hosts and disperse among people, places and habitats. We investigate how these processes affect persistence, transmission and adaptation.
By combining strain-resolved metagenomics, comparative genomics, population genetics and phylogenetic analysis, we ask what a microbial species means in practice, and when variation within a species changes the conclusions we draw about health or ecology.
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Microbial communities
Making patterns in complex communities easier to see and test.
Communities are more than lists of species. Their structure reflects shared niches, environmental pressures, host biology and interactions between organisms. We use numerical ecology, matrix factorisation and metabolic models to identify recurring patterns in the gut, soil and water.
These patterns make large datasets more interpretable without forcing every sample into a discrete type. They help us investigate community-level variation associated with diet, inflammation, ageing and broader environmental change.
Lab blogs and news
Public-facing explainers and practical guidance by Falk Hildebrand and colleagues, including pieces originally published in The Conversation.
Why IBD is so hard to treat, and how scientists are making progress
Falk Hildebrand, Katarzyna Sidorczuk and Wing Koon outline why inflammatory bowel disease remains difficult to treat and how microbiome research could inform future therapies.
Is there a “brain microbiome”? No
Falk Hildebrand, Mark Pallen and Aimee Parker set out why extraordinary claims need rigorous contamination controls and independent validation.
The many faces of the microbiome: our future health
Falk Hildebrand and Chris Quince discuss what microbiome science could contribute to future health research and innovation.
Metagenomics: exploring the unseen
Falk explains how metagenomics can measure microbial communities that are difficult to characterise by culture alone, from the gut to environmental ecosystems.
Microbiome research best practice website launched
Practical, openly available guidance for designing, analysing and communicating robust microbiome research, including contributions from Falk and lab colleagues.
Research commentary
Companion articles, comments and external discussion that help place lab publications in a wider scientific conversation.
Coarse graining the human gut microbiome
Christian Diener and Sean M. Gibbons discuss the enterosignatures study and its approach to describing gut-microbiome variability through recurrent bacterial guilds.
Bioinformatics explores intestinal microbiota
A feature with former lab member Clémence Frioux on enterosignatures, generalisable microbiome models and their potential clinical relevance.
The microbiome’s evolution is shaped by dispersal strategies
A report on the group's study of bacterial persistence and dispersal in the human gut.
Institutional reports
Official news and carefully chosen external reporting related to the group’s research.
Falk Hildebrand recognised in the 2025 Highly Cited Researchers list
Recognition of the influence of research across microbial genomes, strains and evolution.
Healthy gut microbiomes defined by five signatures
How the group’s enterosignatures work made recurring patterns in gut microbiomes easier to describe.
Persistence pays off in the human gut microbiome
A look at the lab-led study of the different strategies gut bacteria use to persist, spread and evolve.
New project explores soil microbes and UK net-zero goals
A project using sequencing and computational analysis to examine soil microbial communities and carbon storage.
What lives inside the chicken gut?
How genome-resolved metagenomics revealed extensive microbial diversity in an important food-animal ecosystem.
ERC funding for elusive gut microbes
How the group’s research programme set out to investigate rare and poorly characterised microbes in the human gut.
Software developed through the research.
Our software is openly available so colleagues can inspect, adapt and build on the work.
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