Faculty Profile

Hired under a campus wide Microbial Systems Initiative (MSI), Allen holds faculty positions in Health and Kinesiology (HK), the Division for Nutritional Sciences (DNS), and Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB). His research program is focused on understanding how specific environmental interventions and conditions: 1.  Nutrition 2. Exercise 3. Stress and 4. Aging—influence gut microbial communities and metabolite production during both homeostatic and pathological disease states. Dr. Allen’s lab utilizes a range of in vitro systems (organoids, bacterial culture), pre-clinical animal models, and clinical studies to test hypotheses into how gut microbes interact with the host immune system to influence human health.