Microbiome and the Eye: What's the Connection?

Microbiome and the Eye: What’s the connection? highlights how alterations in the gut and eye microbiomes can lead to systemic immune alterations with subsequent effects on the eye. The book is divided into two sections, one highlighting how alterations in the gut microbiome impact various components of health outside the gut, with a focus on the immune system and inflammatory mediators, and the second focusing on studies on a variety of ocular diseases, including ocular surface diseases/dry eye, keratitis, uveitis, glaucoma, and retinopathy to gut dysbiosis. With its translational approach, the book is suitable for both researchers and clinicians.

The book will help readers understand the mechanisms in which gut and eye microbiome composition may influence health in multiple compartments, with a focus on eye diseases.

• Helps researchers understand the clinical eye diseases that have been linked to gut microbiome abnormalities
• Helps clinicians understand the mechanisms in which gut microbiome composition may influence health in multiple compartments
• Provides a foundation for future studies that consider gut microbiome manipulations as a treatment for specific eye diseases

Anat Galor is a staff physician at the Miami VAMC and a Professor of Ophthalmology at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, University of Miami. Dr. Galor received an undergraduate degree from Carnegie Mellon University in 1997 and a medical doctorate degree at Washington University School of Medicine in 2002. She pursued residency training in ophthalmology at the Cleveland Cole Eye Institute (2006) followed by fellowship training in uveitis at the Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University (2007) and fellowship training in cornea, external disease, and refractive surgery at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute (2008).

Dr. Galor is the author of numerous publications that focus on dry eye, ocular surface tumors, and cornea. Dr. Galor's research has focused on understanding mechanisms of pain in dry eye, with an emphasis on studying new diagnostic and treatment modalities.

Dr. Jun Sun is a tenured Professor of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), U.S.A.. She is an elected fellow of American Gastroenterological Associate (AGA) and American Physiology Society (APS). She is the Chair-elected for the AGA microbiome section. Her research interests are host-microbiome interactions in inflammation and cancer. Her key achievements include 1) characterization of vitamin D receptor regulation of gut microbiome in intestinal homeostasis and inflammation, 2) identification of dysbiosis and intestinal dysfunction in Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), 3) characterization of bacteria in regulating intestinal stem cells and leading to cancer, and 4) identification and characterization of the Salmonella protein AvrA in host-bacterial interactions. Dr. Sun has published over 170 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals, including Gut, Gastroenterolog, Cell Stem Cells, Nature Genetics, JBC, Autophagy, American Journal of Pathology, & American Journal of Physiology-GI. She is the leading editor of three books, including a recent Nature/Spring book entitled “Mechanisms underlying host-microbiome interactions in pathophysiology of human diseases.” This book has shown a novel theme and multiple disciplinary topics of microbiome research for broad audience. She is the author of Nature/Spring book “Statistical Analysis of Microbiome Data with R. This timely book addresses the statistical modelling and analysis of microbiome data using cutting-edge R software. She serves the editorial board of more than 10 peer-reviewed international scientific journals. She services study sections for the NIH, American Cancer Society, and other national and international research foundations. She has been invited to chair meetings on microbiome, be a keynote speaker, and to write reviews, editorials, and comments on microbiome in human diseases for peer-reviewed journals. She is actively involved in advocating microbiome research at the international, national and institutional levels. Her research is supported by the NIH, DOD, and other research awards.
Dr. Sun is a believer of scientific art and artistic science. She enjoys writing her science papers in English and poems in Chinese. She teaches her medical fellows biomedical knowledge and also the way to translate the Chinese poems. In addition to her research papers and books, her poetry collection《让时间停留在这一刻 》“Let time stay still at this moment” is published in 2018 by the Chinese Literature and History Press.