Prof. Emma Allen-Vercoe, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, is featured in an Aug. 7 article in Chatelaine magazine. Allen-Vercoe is world-renowned for her research on the microbial world inside the human gut.

In the article, she discusses the connection between your gut and your brain. Early and excessive exposure to antibiotics may be partly to blame for the increase in chronic diseases, Allen-Vercoe says, adding that antibiotics may deprive people of the bacterial richness that humans evolved to depend on.

Allen-Vercoe created the “robo-gut” scientific laboratory at U of G, which mimics the environment of the large intestine. She released a groundbreaking study in 2013 on how a synthetic “poop” she created to replace human fecal matter in stool transplants can cure gastrointestinal infections caused by Clostridium difficile, a toxin-producing bacterium.