Humanity’s Tiniest Friend

Dr. Naama Geva-Zatorsky of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine is investigating intestinal bacteria and its effect on our bodies

Dr. Geva-Zatorsky

Bacteria in the body plays a critical role in health. Called the microbiota, this ecological community affects us from birth. For example, the microbiota of babies born naturally through the birth canal differs from the microbiota of babies born via C-section.

The microbiota has many different and surprising functions in the animal world. Elephants, for example, eat their feces as it provides a wealth of bacteria not found elsewhere. Squids camouflage themselves using bacteria that produce light, thus concealing their shadow from predators. The microbiome also has a profound effect on us humans, as it’s involved both in maintaining our health as well as in a variety of diseases including diabetes, cancer, and obesity. They even affect our mood.

The microbiota’s effect on the immune system is the focus of Dr. Naama Geva-Zatorsky’s research.

Dr. Geva-Zatorsky, 39, is a new faculty member at the Technion’s Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and the Technion Integrated Cancer Center (TICC). She was born in Moshav Ometz in the Hefer Valley and grew up in “many places around the world.” As a child, even before she knew the meaning of the word biology, she liked to collect leaves and observe snails and other animals in nature. When she began studying biology she discovered that bacteria communicate with each other and the environment. This then became the focus of her scientific research.

“We all know that there are a lot of cells in our bodies, human and non-human in origin,” says Dr. Geva-Zatorsky, “but it is important to understand that the bacteria co-existing within us are very important to our health, and therefore we must learn to live with them in peace. The intestinal bacteria, which are the most abundant and diverse population of bacteria in our body, have a complex relationship with our bodies – a relationship that evolved over eons of co-evolution.”

Her academic career began with a B.Sc at Tel Aviv University and an M.Sc and Ph.D at the Weizmann Institute of Science. In her graduate degrees she studied cancer cell responses to chemotherapeutic drugs and the development of effective anti-cancer drug combinations. Later she entered her current field of study – the effects the microbiome in the digestive tract have on the host’s immune system. During her career path, she received several awards including the international 2012 L’Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science. Prior to joining the Technion, she worked at the Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology at Harvard Medical School. She recently received the Alon Scholarship – a prestigious scholarship designed to facilitate the incorporation of young researchers into Israeli universities. In addition, she was selected as a Horev Fellow in Technion’s Leaders in Science and Technology Program.

In her research, published in Cell, Science, and other leading journals, Dr. Geva-Zatorsky showed that the relationship between the microbiome and the immune system dramatically affects the functions of this system. While in the United States she developed, in her words, “a new method that allows tracking of the microbiota in real-time. This method allows us to ‘live broadcast’ the bacteria communicating amongst themselves and with our bodies.”

With this method, Dr. Geva-Zatorsky studies the communications between the gut bacteria and the cells of our immune system. In mouse model experiments, she demonstrated the importance of over 60 different human intestinal bacteria in the development of the host’s immune system. “When we add the appropriate bacteria to an organism its immune system develops and becomes stronger. This, of course, is reminiscent of the development of an infant’s immune system in response to the presence of bacteria. Our technology allows us to identify the role of each type of bacteria in this process, and the idea is that in the future we will use bacteria to create unique drugs for various types of disruptions in the immune system and for various diseases.”

Pictured: The mouse’s intestinal cells are shown in blue, and the intestinal bacteria are marked with different colors in order to learn about their location in the intestine and their interactions.

A lecture by Dr. Geva-Zatorsky on microbiology