Allyson Byrd

In parallel to the traditional samples, i.e. tumor biopsies and peripheral blood, stool collections are rapidly being incorporated into our oncology clinical protocols as a means to characterize the gut microbiome. A newly appreciated biomarker for immunotherapy, the gut microbiome collectively refers to the diverse bacteria, fungi and viruses that colonize an individual’s gastrointestinal tract. Broadly my group aims to use these clinical stool samples to explore the role of microorganisms in cancer development, therapeutic response, and immune system activation.

To complement clinical collections, we have been leveraging a 1,000 person healthy control population to understand which factors influence the gut microbiome in the steady state and how the gut microbiome subsequently impacts systemic immune responses. In parallel, we are also interested in the role of microbes locally present in the tumor. To accomplish this, we are actively developing methods to reliably detect microbes in the tumor tissue and then correlating those microbial signatures with clinical metadata and tumor expression patterns.

• National Institutes of Health, Boston University, PhD. in Bioinformatics – 2016
• University of Georgia, B.S. in Genetics – 2012

• Genentech Research Biology Recognition Award – 2018
• Boston University Charles DeLisi Doctoral Dissertation Award – 2017
• NIH Three Minute Talk (TmT) Contest, 1st place – 2016
• National Human Genome Research Institute Intramural Research Award – 2016