Alessio Fasano and Susie Flaherty

Preface vii
I The Wisdom of a Microscopic Species
1 Evolutionary Biology Explains Bacterial
Adaptability 3
2 The Ancestral Microbiome 21
3 Early Factors Influencing the Microbiome 49
4 Cracking the Codes: From the Human Genome
to the Human Microbiome 81
5 Beyond Bacteria: Those Other “Omes” 103
6 The Microbiome Hypothesis: The Epigenetic Role
of the Microbiome 131
II The Microbiome’s Role in Disease
7 The Microbiome and Gut Inflammatory
Disorders 165
8 The Microbiome and Obesity 187
9 The Microbiome and Autoimmunity 207
10 The Microbiome and Neurological and Behavioral
Disorders 237
11 The Microbiome and Environmental
Enteropathy 259
12 The Microbiome and Cancer 273
III Manipulating the Microbiome to Maintain Health
13 From Association to Causation: A New Approach
to Microbiome Composition and Function in
Disease Development 293
14 Preventive Medicine: Monitoring the Microbiome
for Disease Prediction and Interception 313
15 Treatments for Disease: Prebiotics, Probiotics,
Synbiotics, and Postbiotics 345
16 Microbiome Research in Gut-Brain Axis Diseases:
Psychobiotics 381
17 Artificial Intelligence, Synthetic Biology,
and the Microbiome 391
18 Maintaining a Resilient Microbiome through
Old Age 411
Epilogue: Why Studying Our Microbiome Is
Important for Our Future 425
Acknowledgments 443
Notes 445