賴信志Hsin-Chih Lai

長庚大學醫學生物技術暨檢驗學系教授

研究中草藥及微生物相 開發疾病預防與治療藥物

My main research directions are to decipher the interplay among gut microbiome, host Immunity and diseases development, in order to achieve the purpose of ameliorating chronic inflammations related diseases. I have been working on development of prebiotics derived from Traditional Chinese Medicine ( TCM ) herbs, identifying and isolating novel beneficial microbiota bacteria ( next generation probiotics, NGP), and also characterizing postbiotics/paraprobiotics produced due to close interaction between prebiotics and probiotics. Gut microbiome composition has been widely studied to be closely linked to immune development and progression of inflammatory diseases, not only in local gastrointestinal ( GI ) tract, but also systemic extra-GI tissues. Based on our previous functional discovery of novel bioactive components from TCM herbs, the high molecular weight polysaccharides from several medicinal fungi ( prebiotics ) are highlighted to significantly ameliorate obesity and metabolic syndromes. These are followed by screening and identification of many beneficial bacterial strains ( potential NGPs ) , including Parabacteroides goldsteinii that on its own achieves the ameliorative effects, and many other Bacteroides spp. bacteria. Subsequently, several chemical molecules derived from P. goldsteinii and others ( postbiotics ) are identified to play important roles in prevention of diseases progression. While the underlying molecular mechanisms are under intensive study through multi-omics approach, our research subsequently extends to show that this ( and other ) bacterium also prevents the development of COPD, lung cancer, CRC, NAFLD, and many other chronic inflammation related diseases. The long term goal of my research is to identify more practically applicable beneficial prebiotics, probiotics and postbiotics, to be developed for prevention or even treatment of chronic inflammation related diseases.

得獎感言

First of all, I would like to thank MOST for kindly providing the grants in supporting my TCM and microbiota related researches for so many years, which is really appreciated. Besides, many laboratory colleagues also have been working very hard together to get this achievement. I have many excellent research colleagues, and it has been wonderful time that we intensively discussed with each other from time to time every day, and anywhere during daily research lives. There were of course hard time for me as well, as there were also many failures encountered during the many rounds of experiments in progression. However, we continued, insisted, and unraveled the underlying reasons why we succeeded and why we failed in experiments. We never give up going towards our research goals. Finally, I would like to express my thankfulness to my mentors. Without them, there would be no such research outputs.

個人勵志銘

心存善念。永不退縮。