Our research group’s interests revolve around two related topics: the role of lateral gene transfer (LGT) and selfish DNA in the evolution of microorganisms and the study of host-microbe interactions, with a particular focus on the human gut microbiome in health and disease. Our work spans the whole spectrum of evolutionary biology from environmental and comparative population genomics all the way to the testing of specific hypotheses by engineering strains and performing experiments under ecologically relevant conditions.