TED Talks: Eisen

Our bodies are covered in a sea of microbes -- both the pathogens that make us sick and the 'good' microbes, about which we know less, that might be keeping us healthy. At TEDMED, microbiologist Jonathan Eisen shares what we know, including some surprising ways to put those good microbes to work.

Research in Jonathan Eisen's lab focuses on the “phylogenomics of novelty” in microbes. Among their major research themes are:
• the genomic basis for the origin and evolution of new functions
• the ecology and evolution of microbial communities
• the co-evolution of microbes and their carrying vessels (i.e., hosts)
• variation in “evolvability”
• the development of phylogeny driven computational tools to analyze genomic and metagenomic sequence data.
Eisen is also a strong proponent of the Open Access movement in scientific publishing and is Academic Editor in Chief of PLoS Biology. Dr. Eisen is also an active and award-winning science blogger on The Tree of Life.