Abhishek Jain, PhD

Our laboratory applies untargeted metabolomics to investigate how the gut microbiome and environmental exposures shape human health and disease. We combine large human population studies, multivariate statistical modeling, and metabolic epidemiology with combinational bioinformatics and multi-omic integration to identify metabolic signatures that link diet, pollutants, and microbiome activity to cancer risk and therapeutic response. Alongside these population-scale efforts, we are advancing method development in untargeted metabolomics, focusing on novel metabolite identification, annotation of unknown molecular features, and integration with next-generation sequencing data to map metabolic pathways connecting microbes and their human hosts.

At the Wadsworth Center, we are developing high-resolution metabolomics pipelines on Thermo Fisher Orbitrap platforms and cultivating extensive collections of anaerobic gut bacterial species to study microbial biotransformation of dietary and environmental compounds. By combining human biospecimen analysis with pre-clinical models, our group is constructing a comprehensive framework to define how the gut microbiota influences metabolism, immunity, and disease. These efforts also extend to understanding the health effects of PFAS and other environmental pollutants, their metabolic and immune signatures, and improving dried blood spot–based newborn screening for environmental toxicants—directly supporting Wadsworth’s public health mission.

Building on earlier discoveries in cancer metabolomics and microbial–host co-metabolism of sulfated metabolites, we continue to explore how microbial enzymatic activities generate bioactive molecules that modulate cancer biology and detoxification. By integrating multi-omic, bioinformatic, and epidemiologic data, our goal is to uncover actionable metabolic pathways that can be leveraged to enhance the anti-cancer potential of diet and reduce the toxicity of environmental exposures.