News and insights

To convert food into energy, our bodies rely on a complex network of molecular pathways known broadly as metabolism. Along the path from food to energy, intermediate molecules emerge that form the starting materials for the next step. Traditionally, these intermediates were viewed simply as building blocks — essential for the process, but otherwise inert.

The revealed the vast numbers and types of microbes that live on and in the human body. While this thought may be unpleasant, humans can have larger, more gruesome passengers hitching a ride, such as the several-centimeter-long nematode Loa loa, which infects millions of people in Western and Central Africa.