Dr Jeffrey Gordon (Washington University in St Louis) spent his Vallee Visiting Professorship last spring at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) where he is collaborating with colleagues to redefine how childhood undernutrition – the leading cause of death in under five-year-olds – is understood and treated. The visit built on collaborations that have revealed disruption of normal postnatal gut microbiota development as a driver of moderate and severe acute malnutrition (MAM/SAM), findings that emerged from clinical cohorts in Bangladesh and beyond.

The goal of Dr Gordon’s sabbatical was to meet with his icddr.b colleagues and plan their next steps as they focus on advancing microbiota-directed complementary food (MDCF) formulations and randomized controlled trials across Bangladesh as well as other South Asian and African countries in 6-24 month old children. Discussions included new strategies to target microbiota impairments in undernourished women with environmental enteric dysfunction (EED), leveraging gnotobiotic mouse models to identify bacterial effectors of prenatal as well as postnatal development.

Despite challenges — including a revolution as well as the abrupt USAID shutdown and the dismissal of 1,400 icddr,b staff — the visit adapted through virtual engagement, maintaining momentum in scientific exchange and planning. Field visits enabled direct dialogue with frontline healthcare workers, ensuring research remains grounded in local needs.  And with support from the Balzan Foundation, Dr Gordon and his colleagues have established an exchange program which involves 6-month sabbaticals for talented young icddr,b scientists at his own lab so they can become familiar with the experimental and computational pipelines required to study the human microbiome.