Our intestinal tract, skin and upper respiratory tract among other body sites are routinely exposed and colonized by numerous and various bacteria impacting our health. At the Microbiome Center Utrecht, we aim to explore the interactions between these microbes and our human host cells with the aim of being able to predict and prevent diseases, as well as paving the way to innovative therapeutic approaches.  To achieve this, we make use of technology such as 16S rRNA profiling, metagenomic and meta-transcriptomic sequencing, anaerobic microbiota culturomics, in vitro and in vivo disease models, tissue culture, and organoids.