# Jeffrey I. Gordon

Jeffrey I. Gordon (born c. 1947) is a biologist and the Dr. Robert J. Glaser Distinguished University Professor and Director of The Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences & Systems Biology at Washington University School of Medicine. He is internationally known for his research on gastrointestinal development and for founding the field of human microbiome research. His research has revolutionized our understanding of the human microbiome and its roles in health and disease, particularly with regard to nutrition, digestion and metabolism.
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. Much of his work has focused on addressing the global health challenge of childhood undernutrition. 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. He and his team identified underdeveloped gut microbiota as a contributing cause of childhood malnutrition and found that therapeutic food aimed at repairing the gut microbiome is superior to a widely used standard therapeutic food to treat childhood malnutrition. 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.
Gordon has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (2001), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2004), the National Academy of Medicine (2008), and the American Philosophical Society (2014).

## Education and career

Gordon received his bachelor's degree in Biology at 1969 at Oberlin College in Ohio. Over the next four years, Gordon received his medical training at the University of Chicago and graduated with honors in 1973. After two years as intern and junior assistant resident in Medicine at Barnes Hospital (now Barnes-Jewish Hospital), St. Louis, Gordon joined the Laboratory of Biochemistry at the National 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) at Washington 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.

## Early scientific research

Gordon's early career focused on the development of cell lineages within the gastrointestinal 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 a myristoyl 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.

## Present research

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 employs germ-free and gnotobiotic 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 interpret metagenomic and gut microbial genomic sequencing data. In recent studies, Dr. Gordon's lab has established that the gut microbiota plays a role in host fat storage and obesity. Gordon and co-workers have used DNA pyrosequencing 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. 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. 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. This approach has been extended to describe the role of the adaptive immune system in maintaining the host-microbial relationship.
Gordon is the lead author of an influential 2005 National Human Genome Research Institute white-paper entitled “Extending Our View of Self: the Human Gut Microbiome Initiative (HGMI)”. In 2007 the Human Microbiome Project was listed on the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research as one of the New Pathways to Discovery.

## Selected honors

Major awards and honors received by Gordon include:
* 2001 Elected, National Academy of Sciences
** 2010-2013 Chair, Medical Physiology and Metabolism Section, National Academy of Sciences
* 2004 Elected, American Academy of Arts & Sciences
* 2008 Elected, National Academy of Medicine
* 2013 Selman A. Waksman Award in Microbiology, National Academy of Sciences
* 2013 Robert Koch Award, Koch Foundation
* 2014 Passano Award, Passano Foundation
* 2014 Elected, American Philosophical Society
* 2014 Dickson Prize in Medicine, University of Pittsburgh
* 2015 King Faisal International Prize in Medicine, King Faisal Foundation
* 2015 Keio Medical Science Prize, Keio University
* 2017 Massry Prize, Meira and Shaul G. Massry Foundation
* 2017 Sanofi-Institut Pasteur International Award for Biomedical Research, Sanofi; Institut Pasteur
* 2017 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize, Columbia University
* 2018 Copley Medal, Royal Society
* 2018 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biology and Biomedicine, BBVA Foundation
* 2021 Balzan Prize for Microbiome in Health and Disease, International Balzan Foundation
* 2021 George M. Kober Medal, Association of American Physicians
* 2022 David and Beatrix Hamburg Award for Advances in Biomedical Research and Clinical Medicine, National Academy of Medicine
* 2022 Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research, Johnson & Johnson
* 2023 Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, The Princess of Asturias Foundation
* 2023 Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research, Albany Med Health System
* 2024 Mechthild Esser Nemmers Prize in Medical Science, Northwestern University
* 2024 Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest, Scripps Institution of Oceanography - University of California, San Diego