““Perhaps our greatest strength in basic science research is with the microbiome [e.g., the bacteria that live in the gut]. We helped develop an animal model for liver disease that become one of the most widely utilized in the world, as it recreates lipid diseases in mice. That enables us, in the lab, to study causes of the liver disease and also ways to prevent and reverse it. In particular, Dr. Eugene Chang’s work with the Duchossois Family Institute [at the University of Chicago Medicine], discovered that mice that don’t have any microbes, animals that have been bred to be germ-free, and live in germ-free facilities, are totally resistant to fatty liver disease.”