Mary Kable, Ph.D.

Mary Kable
  • Research Molecular Biologist, USDA ARS Western Human Nutrition Research Center
  • Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Nutrition
Bio

Research Interest

Dr. Kable is interested in the mechanisms governing how diet impacts the bacterial composition of the human gut and how these diet-bacterial interactions can influence human health. In particular, she is interested in how dietary fiber can affect the composition of the gut microbiota in such a way as to increase or decrease colonization resistance and susceptibility to food borne pathogens.

Kable Lab activities are currently focused on (1) characterization of the gut microbiota in a healthy human cohort and potential interactions between this composition and the long term dietary habits of healthy individuals, (2) optimization of methods for medium through-put culture of diverse gut microbiota, (3) in vitro fermentation of complete gut microbiota and individual bacteria from healthy human subjects with various food components, especially dietary fiber.