Georgina Hold

Professor Georgina Hold is a Professor of Gut Microbiology at the St George and Sutherland Clinical School, UNSW Australia. She is interested in understanding the impact of gastrointestinal microbes on human health and disease. In particular understanding the interactions between resident microbes and their host and how changes in the microbiota impact on human health. Developing greater understanding in this area allows us to further appreciate the contribution that gut microbes play in diseases and potentially develop therapeutic strategies to maintain and restore health.

Her lab has an internationally renowned reputation for microbiome analysis. This has been achieved by a) developing robust protocols for collecting and processing the most clinically relevant samples, and b) ensuring the science is clinically driven. The main challenges in gut microbiome research relate to defining the metabolic capabilities of the gut microbiota, the effect of therapeutic regimens on the gut microbiota and ultimately identifying how to manipulate these factors to promote/maintain health. This requires multi-disciplinary research strategies harnessing clinicians, microbiologists, nutritionists, epidemiologists, bioinformaticians and also public health analysts. To achieve this the team collaborates with groups all over the world to ensure they bring together the skills sets required to address multi-faceted research questions.