Segata Lab

Was an absolute joy and honour to have the incomparable @cibiocm.bsky.social give our inaugural School seminar today. Tour de force of microbiome research talk.

Nicole Dubilier is standing in front of her opening slides that says 'Eating your microbiome: nutritional symbioses between chemosynthetic bacteria and marine invertebrates'

Excellent line-up for microbiology/microbiome speakers in Birmingham this week.

Yesterday we hosted @cibiocm.bsky.social, presenting his stunning work on the human microbiome, and today's @imibirmingham.bsky.social Harry Smith lecture by Nicole Dubilier

Diet as a major actor in shaping the microbiome

The first plenary session at #GMFH2026 will feature expert talks from Ciarán Forde, @drharmstrong.bsky.social and Eran Segal, with Nicola Segata @cibiocm.bsky.social as session moderator.

Secure your spot 👉 https://bit.ly/45nJCks

🔴 Follow the livestream of the @erc.europa.eu Annual Conference "Frontier research for One Health": webcast.ec.europa.eu/erc-workshop...

Nicola Segata will talk about the microbiome transmission from a #OneHealth perspective!

✅ ADD #MVIFconversations podcast to github.com/SvetlanaUP/M...

Woohoo! (this initiative has been cooking for a long time)

In 15-30 minutes each month, the @microbiomevif.bsky.social members chat with #microbiome experts.

▶️ open.spotify.com/show/1f4lBWv...
(other platforms below)

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Growing together, bacterium after bacterium The microbiome of infants is shaped by social relationships from an early age and not only by family sources. This was confirmed by a study conducted by researchers of the Department of Cellular, Comp...

Growing together, bacterium after bacterium | EurekAlert! www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

Baby-to-baby strain transmission shapes the developing gut microbiome - Nature A metagenomic survey of babies attending the first year of nursery detected extensive baby-to-baby microbial strain transmission, pointing to social interactions in infancy as crucial drivers of infan...

“To me it was a surprise to see how mums also acquired bacteria from other families through their kids” María Carmen Collado said.

Read the full paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Baby-to-baby strain transmission shapes the developing gut microbiome - Nature A metagenomic survey of babies attending the first year of nursery detected extensive baby-to-baby microbial strain transmission, pointing to social interactions in infancy as crucial drivers of infan...

Every parent who has had or has kids in nursery becomes all too quickly aware of how the kids share their viruses. Now data shows how the gut microbiome is also shaped by the nursery environment especially parents and the other kids 🧪

Sending babies to nursery completely reshapes their microbiomes Socializing at a young age helps to develop greater diversity in children’s microbiota, according to an analysis of baby-to-baby transmission of gut bacteria.

🧪 Sending babies to nursery completely reshapes their microbiomes.
Infants attending nursery share 15-20% of microbial species with peers after four months. This peer transmission exceeds family contributions, indicating social interaction drives gut diversity. 🧬💻

Sending babies to nursery completely reshapes their microbiomes Socializing at a young age helps to develop greater diversity in their microbiota, according to an analysis of baby-to-baby transmission of gut bacteria.

A few months at nursery gives a roughly 1-year-old baby more new microbes for its gut microbiome than it has acquired in its WHOLE LIFE up until that point from its family. 🤯

🧪 #microbiome #science

My latest for @nature.com

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Sending babies to nursery completely reshapes their microbiomes Socializing at a young age helps to develop greater diversity in children’s microbiota, according to an analysis of baby-to-baby transmission of gut bacteria.

Sending babies to nursery completely reshapes their microbiomes.

Socializing at a young age helps to develop greater diversity in children’s microbiota, according to an analysis of baby-to-baby transmission of gut bacteria.

🧪👶🦠 #medsky @medsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Baby-to-baby strain transmission shapes the developing gut microbiome - Nature A metagenomic survey of babies attending the first year of nursery detected extensive baby-to-baby microbial strain transmission, pointing to social interactions in infancy as crucial drivers of infan...

“To me it was a surprise to see how mums also acquired bacteria from other families through their kids” María Carmen Collado said.

Read the full paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Sending babies to nursery completely reshapes their microbiomes Socializing at a young age helps to develop greater diversity in their microbiota, according to an analysis of baby-to-baby transmission of gut bacteria.

. @nature.com NEWS: Sending babies to nursery completely reshapes their microbiomes

“Maybe in 20 years, we will find that people still need to thank their friends at day care for the microbes they got when they were there” Nicola Segata says.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Baby-to-baby strain transmission shapes the developing gut microbiome - Nature A metagenomic survey of babies attending the first year of nursery detected extensive baby-to-baby microbial strain transmission, pointing to social interactions in infancy as crucial drivers of infan...

#NatMicroPicks Baby-to-baby strain transmission shapes the developing gut microbiome - out now in Nature! 👶🦠👶

#microsky #microbiome @nature.com @cibiocm.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Baby-to-baby strain transmission shapes the developing gut microbiome - Nature A metagenomic survey of babies attending the first year of nursery detected extensive baby-to-baby microbial strain transmission, pointing to social interactions in infancy as crucial drivers of infan...

Baby-to-baby strain transmission shapes the developing gut microbiome www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Baby-to-baby strain transmission shapes the developing gut microbiome - Nature A metagenomic survey of babies attending the first year of nursery detected extensive baby-to-baby microbial strain transmission, pointing to social interactions in infancy as crucial drivers of infan...

🥁 NEW

Our study on infant gut microbiome and #straintransmission is now published in @nature.com:

doi.org/10.1038/s415...

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Cool study showing in exquisite details what every parent of kids in daycare already knows...

Socializing at a young age helps to develop greater diversity in their microbiota, according to an analysis of baby-to-baby transmission of gut bacteria @nature.com @cibiocm.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Excited and proud to share our new work with @cibiocm.bsky.social, @vheidrich.bsky.social and @michal puncochar!

two babies laying on their stomachs on a play mat ALT: two babies laying on their stomachs on a play mat

✨Super thanks to all our participants and #microTOUCH #ERC_Research!

#straintransmission #metagenomics

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👏 Credit to @livi-ricci.bsky.social @vheidrich.bsky.social Michal Punčochář, Federica Armanini @matteo-ciciani.bsky.social @amirn.bsky.social Farnaz Fazaeli, Elisa Piperni, Charlotte Servais, Federica Pinto @mireiavallesc.bsky.social @fasnicar.bsky.social Nicola Segata

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What's the take-home message?

Baby-to-baby transmission is a cornerstone of gut microbiome assembly, revealing that social interactions—not just family—drive microbial development in early life.

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📌Among factors like birth practices, age, and diet, antibiotic treatment was the most strongly associated with variations in microbiome transmission. Infants recovered their microbial diversity through new strain acquisition more efficiently than adults.

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📌 Key health-promoting bacteria, like B. longum infantis, spread preferentially between babies compared to other relation pairs.

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Here are more key insights:

📌 Babies with older siblings start nursery with a more diverse microbiome and subsequently acquire fewer strains from their peers in the nursery pointing to siblings as crucial sources of infant microbiome enrichment.

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figure

Our strain-sharing pipeline enabled us to trace the passage of single microbiome members baby to baby and then to wider family networks via the nursery.

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After just one year in nursery, peer-acquired microbial strains make up as large a proportion of babies' microbiomes as family-acquired strains.

This reveals that social interactions, not just genetics and home environment, are fundamental to how infant microbiomes develop.

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We followed 134 participants over a year—babies, nursery educators, parents, siblings, and pets—using strain-resolved metagenomics to map how gut bacteria spread baby to baby and to wider family networks via the nursery.

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Baby-to-baby strain transmission shapes the developing gut microbiome - Nature A metagenomic survey of babies attending the first year of nursery detected extensive baby-to-baby microbial strain transmission, pointing to social interactions in infancy as crucial drivers of infan...

🥁 NEW

Our study on infant gut microbiome and #straintransmission is now published in @nature.com:

doi.org/10.1038/s415...

1/10

Join #MVIF 45 cassyni.com/s/mvif-45

and #MeetTheSpeakers

Haseeb Manzoor will share findings from the investigation of the gut microbiome and its predicted metabolite profiles in breast cancer patients.