It is not widely recognized that neurochemicals are widely found throughout nature including all animals, their microbiomes, and the food that they consume. Many of these neurochemicals have long shared evolutionary histories and are in fact exactly the same in structure whether found in the feed, microbiome or the animals themselves. As such, neurochemistry is a shared universal language that once understood, represents a new frontier in nutrition that can benefit animal health and well-being.
Mark Lyte is a Full Professor and W.E. Lloyd Endowed Chair in the Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Preventive Medicine at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, USA. He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Biophysics and Cellular Immunology at the Weizmann Institute of Science and holds clinical board certification as a medical laboratory scientist. He had been mainly involved in human disease until joining the Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine in 2015. Work from Prof. Lyte’s laboratory has provided the initial and continuing results demonstrating the ability of microorganisms, especially probiotics, to produce and recognize neurochemicals that are capable of influencing host health, behavior, and disease pathogenesis in farm production animals and humans. His lab is recognized as the first to publish evidence of a microbiome-gutbrain axis based on shared neurochemistry between microbes and the host. His work has resulted in the creation of a new translational scientific discipline uniting the fields of neurobiology and microbiology that has been termed Microbial Endocrinology. He holds a number of patents utilizing Microbial Endocrinology to design probiotics that benefit animals with an emphasis on poultry. Prof. Lyte is the recipient of awards including the Zoetis Award for Veterinary Research Excellence, Joseph Susman Memorial Award for Surgical Infectious Disease Research by the Surgical Infection Societies of North America and Europe and was a finalist for the National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award.
