My-Nga Ingram

Ingram's innovative teaching idea, "What's in your Gut?" focuses on giving high school students the opportunity to participate in college-level research. The program explores the intimate relationship between diet, disease, lifestyle and the beneficial bacterial communities that reside in the stomach. Participants will work with Dr. Rob Knight from UC San Diego who will analyze student-provided samples using cutting edge technology called Next Generation Sequencing. The students will analyze the subsequent data to develop their understanding of how supplemental commercial products such as Activia and Yakult, as well as how their own lives influence their gut health. Ingram hopes to demonstrate the benefits of personalized healthcare and introduce the students to the frontier of medical research.