Jacques Izard

Jacques Izard portrait

jizard@unmc.edu

402-836-9250

As the health status of the population is getting more complex, the Izard laboratory focuses on the interaction of our microbiome with diet and how this interaction impacts wellness. We use culture-dependent and culture-independent methods to understand the impact of the digestive tract bacteria in health and disease such as cancer. The multi-disciplinary approach aims to obtain a greater understanding of our microbiome function to empower everyone to nurture a supportive microbiome. Our participation in the Nebraska Food for Health Center includes the facilitation of clinical studies centered on food, diet, microbiome and host phenotypes.

Jacques Izard, Ph.D. has been involved in basic science studies focusing on bacteria, biofilms as well as in cohort studies. Those cohort studies includes the Human Microbiome Project (HMP; this project recruited few hundred individuals lacking pro-inflammatory condition to observe the microbiome associated with health), the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS; with over 50,000 enrolled volunteers, the purpose is to evaluate hypotheses relating to nutritional factors on the incidence of serious illnesses, such as cancer), and the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC; more than half a million participants recruited in a study designed to investigate the relationships between diet, nutritional status, lifestyle and environmental factors, and the incidence of cancer and other chronic diseases).

Featured Publications

Long H. Nguyen, Wenjie Ma, Dong D. Wang , Yin Cao, Himel Mallick, Teklu Gerbaba, Jason Lloyd-Price, Galeb Abu-Ali, A. Brantley Hall , Daniel Sikavi, David A.Drew, Raaj S. Mehta, Cesar Arze, Amit D. Joshi, Yan Yan, Tobyn Branck, Casey DuLong, Kerry Ivey, Shuji Ogino, Eric B. Rimm EB, Mingyang Song, Wendy S. Garrett, Jacques Izard, Curtis Huttenhower*, Andrew T. Chan*. Association between sulfur-metabolizing bacterial communities in stool and risk of distal colorectal cancer in men. Gastroenterology (2020) vol. 158 (5) pp. 1313-1325.

Kerry L Ivey, Andrew T Chan*, Jacques Izard*, Aedin Cassidy, Geraint B Rogers* and Eric B Rimm*. Role of dietary flavonoid compounds in driving patterns of microbial community assemblymBio (2019) vol. 10 (5) e01205-19.

Erika del Castillo, Richard Meier, Mei Chung, Devin C. Koestler, Tsute Chen, Bruce J. Paster, Kevin P. Charpentier, Karl T. Kelsey, Jacques Izard, and Dominique S. Michaud. The Microbiomes of Pancreatic and Duodenum Tissue Overlap and are Highly Subject Specific but Differ between Pancreatic Cancer and Non-Cancer Subjects. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention (2019) vol. 28(2), pp. 370-383.

Raaj S. Mehta, Galeb Abu-Ali, David A. Drew, Jason Lloyd-Price, Ayshwarya Subramanian, Paul Lochhead, Amit Joshi, Kerry Ivey, Hamed Khalili, Gordon T. Brown, Casey Dulong, Mingyang Song, Long Nguyen, Himel Mallick, Eric B. Rimm, Jacques Izard, Curtis Huttenhower, and Andrew T. Chan. Stability of the of human faecal microbial communities in a cohort of adult men. Nature Microbiology (2018) vol. 3(3), pp. 347-355. 

Galeb S. Abu-Ali, Raaj S. Mehta, Jason Lloyd-Price, Kerry L. Ivey, Himel Malick, Tobyn Branck, David A. Drew, Casey DuLong, Eric Rimm, Jacques Izard, Andy T. Chan, Curtis Huttenhower. Metatranscriptome of human faecal microbial communities in a cohort of adult men. Nature Microbiology (2018) vol. 3(3), pp. 356-366. 

Jacques Izard and Maria C. Rivera, Editors. 2015. Metagenomics for Microbiology. Elsevier/Academic Press. Print Book ISBN 9780124104723. ebook ISBN: 9780124105089. 

Nicola Segata, Susan Kinder Haake, Peter Mannon, Katherine P. Lemon, Dirk Gevers, Levi Waldron, Curtis Huttenhower and Jacques Izard. 2012. Composition of the adult digestive tract microbiome based on seven mouth surfaces, tonsils, throat and stool samples. Genome Biology. 13:R42.