Gut microbiome signatures of colorectal cancer, with Dr. Georg Zeller PhD
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This episode features Dr. Georg Zeller PhD from Leiden University Medical Center (the Netherlands), speaking about gut microbiome signatures of colorectal cancer across global populations. An early study Dr. Zeller completed in Peer Bork’s lab suggested that the gut microbiomes of people with colorectal cancer are distinct from controls. This signature, as well as work on the tumor microbiome, all pointed toward Fusobacterium as particularly important. Subsequent studies exploring this idea show wide variation in geography and methods. Accounting for these factors, meta-analyses have confirmed several gut microbiome characteristics that are enriched in colorectal cancer across the global population. Dr. Zeller was interested to see that bile acid metabolism is consistently enriched in the cancer metagenome. The taxonomic profile, however, appears better than the functional profile in distinguishing colorectal cancer from control samples. He emphasizes the importance of linking his insights from bioinformatic efforts to the mechanistic work being done. Initially he was hopeful that a gut microbiome diagnostic could be developed, but currently the highest achievable AUC for the classification models is around 0.85 or 0.9, which may not be adequate for enhancing current clinical tools. The possibility remains for a gut microbiome test to complement existing diagnostics. The most promising area may be targeted gut microbiome modulation for prevention of colorectal cancer, perhaps through diet. His group is also exploring the gut microbiome for early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, possibly by combining fecal markers with other diagnostic tools.
Episode links:
- Early study in French participants suggesting a gut microbiome signature in colorectal cancer: Potential of fecal microbiota for early-stage detection of colorectal cancer
- Recent meta-analysis from Zeller’s group; Meta-analysis reveals microbiome signatures for colorectal cancer that are universal across age groups and sequencing methods
- Tools for a combination of 16S rRNA & shotgun sequencing data and meta-analysis approaches: Microbiome meta-analysis and cross-disease comparison enabled by the SIAMCAT machine learning toolbox
- Paper on the gut microbiota in pancreatic cancer: A faecal microbiota signature with high specificity for pancreatic cancer
About Dr. Georg Zeller PhD:
Georg Zeller studied Bioinformatics (major in Computer Science) at the Universities of Tübingen (DE) and Uppsala (SE). In 2010 he obtained a PhD from the University of Tübingen (DE) for work performed at the Max Planck Institutes there. Afterwards he joined Peer Bork’s group at EMBL Heidelberg (DE) as a postdoctoral researcher. From 2015 to 2024 he was an independent Team Leader establishing his microbiome research group at EMBL. In 2023 he was appointed as Associated Professor (promoted to full professor in 2025) in the newly formed Leiden University Center for Infectious Diseases (LUCID) at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC, NL) to head the Microbiome Systems Biology group.
His research is aimed at gaining a better understanding of how the microbiome contributes to human health, disease progression and treatment success, and how it is shaped by host factors such as nutrition and pharmaceutical drugs. To address these questions, his group develops computational, statistical and experimental methods for clinical microbiome studies. His long-term goal is to harness fundamental knowledge on the human microbiome and its interactions with the host for the rational design of microbiome-targeted interventions for prevention and (co-)treatment of disease.
