Gordon’s research has significantly advanced scientific understanding of the human gut microbiome as a microbial “organ” that affects human health and disease beyond gastrointestinal health.[7] Much of his work has focused on addressing the global health challenge of childhood undernutrition.[8] Central questions that Gordon and his lab are pursuing include how our gut microbial communities influence human health, what interventions will repair microbial communities for an individual or a population to optimize healthy development, and how to create local infrastructures to deliver treatment in affordable, culturally acceptable, appetizing foods.[9] He and his team identified underdeveloped gut microbiota as a contributing cause of childhood malnutrition[10] and found that therapeutic food aimed at repairing the gut microbiome is superior to a widely used standard therapeutic food to treat childhood malnutrition.[11] Unlike standard therapeutic foods, these microbiome-directed foods improve long-term effects of malnutrition, including problems with metabolism, bone growth, immune function and brain development.[11]
Gordon received his bachelor's degree in Biology at 1969 atOberlin College in Ohio. Over the next four years, Gordon received his medical training at theUniversity of Chicago and graduated with honors in 1973. After two years as intern and junior assistant resident in Medicine at Barnes Hospital (nowBarnes-Jewish Hospital), St. Louis, Gordon joined the Laboratory of Biochemistry at theNational Cancer Institute as a Research Associate in 1975. He returned to Barnes Hospital in 1978 to become Senior Assistant Resident and then Chief Medical Resident at Washington University Medical Service. In 1981 he completed a fellowship in medicine (Gastroenterology) atWashington University School of Medicine. In the following years, Gordon rose quickly through the academic ranks at Washington University: Asst. Prof. (1981–1984); Assoc. Prof. (1985–1987); Prof. (1987–1991) of Medicine and Biological Chemistry. In 1991, he became head of the Department of Molecular Biology and Pharmacology (1991–2004). Gordon is currently the Director of The Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences & Systems Biology (2004–present) at Washington University in St. Louis.
Gordon's early career focused on the development of cell lineages within thegastrointestinal tract. His laboratory initially combined the use of transgenic mouse models and biochemical approaches to elucidate the mechanisms of gut epithelial development along the duodenal-colonic and crypt-villus axes. Early studies also provided important insight into biochemical properties of lipid handling and transport in the digestive system.
Gordon played a pivotal role in the study of protein N-myristoylation, a co-translational modification by which amyristoyl group is covalently attached to an N-terminal glycine residue of a nascent polypeptide. Gordon and his colleagues were instrumental in characterizing the mechanism by which N-myristoyltransferase (the enzyme that catalyzes the myristoylation reaction) selects its substrates and its catalytic mechanism.[16]
Gordon and his laboratory are currently focused on understanding the mutualistic interactions that occur between humans and the 10 trillion commensal microbes that colonize each person's gastrointestinal tract. To tease apart the complex relationships that exist within this gut microbiota, Dr. Gordon's research program employsgerm-free andgnotobiotic mice as model hosts, which may be colonized with defined, simplified microbial communities. These model intestinal microbiotas are more amenable to well-controlled experimentation.
Gordon has become an international pioneer in the study of gut microbial ecology and evolution, using innovative methods to interpretmetagenomic and gut microbial genomic sequencing data. In recent studies, Dr. Gordon's lab has established that thegut microbiota plays a role in host fat storage and obesity.[17] Gordon and co-workers have used DNApyrosequencing technology to perform metagenomics on the intestinal contents of obese mice, demonstrating that the gut microbiota of fat mice possess an enhanced capacity for aiding the host in harvesting energy from the diet.[18] A study of the microbial ecology of obese human subjects on two different weight loss diets indicate that the same principles may be operating in humans.[19] His group has applied the sequencing of bacterial and archaeal genomes to describe the microbial functional genomic and metabolomic underpinnings of microbial adaptation to the gastrointestinal habitat.[20][21] This approach has been extended to describe the role of the adaptive immune system in maintaining the host-microbial relationship.[22]
Gordon is the lead author of an influential 2005National Human Genome Research Institute white-paper entitled “Extending Our View of Self: the Human Gut Microbiome Initiative (HGMI)”. In 2007 theHuman Microbiome Project was listed on the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research as one of the New Pathways to Discovery.[23]
^Turnbaugh, Peter J.; Ley, Ruth E.; Mahowald, Michael A.; Magrini, Vincent; Mardis, Elaine R.; Gordon, Jeffrey I. (2006). "An obesity-associated gut microbiome with increased capacity for energy harvest".Nature.444 (7122). Springer Science and Business Media LLC:1027–1031.Bibcode:2006Natur.444.1027T.doi:10.1038/nature05414.ISSN0028-0836.PMID17183312.S2CID4400297.
^Ley, Ruth E.; Turnbaugh, Peter J.; Klein, Samuel; Gordon, Jeffrey I. (2006). "Human gut microbes associated with obesity".Nature.444 (7122). Springer Science and Business Media LLC:1022–1023.doi:10.1038/4441022a.ISSN0028-0836.PMID17183309.S2CID205034045.
