About Us

​

The Maldonado-Contreras’s lab is focused on developing dietary interventions targeting microbiome-immune interactions to reduce inflammation.

About half of all-American adults have one or more preventable chronic illnesses related to poor diet. Severe inflammation is at the heart of these chronic diet-related illnesses and is linked to perturbation of the gut microbiome.Diet is a modifiable, non-invasive, inexpensive lifestyle change that demonstrably and rapidly shapes the microbiome.

While many molecular mechanisms underpinning the diet-microbiome-immune interaction are being revealed, the translation of these findings to dietary recommendations is yet to materialize. To advance and translate this research to health care application, my laboratory uses a novel approach that integrates: 1) clinical nutritional trials; 2) state-of-the-art multi-omics methodology; and 3) robust and validated predictive analytic and computational frameworks.

Our mission is to empower patients by advancing evidence-based dietary interventions that combine individual characteristics of a patient with the mechanistic understanding of food effects on disease outcomes.

Do you want to join us on our mission? We are seeking a post-doctoral fellow with a background in statistics and bioinformatics and with an interest in the intersection between basic and clinical research.

Please send an e-mail with your CV to: ana.maldonado@umassmed.edu