The global hunger crisis affects more than 8 percent of the world’s population, transcending borders and hitting hardest in developing nations. During the spring and fall of 2025, Associate Professor of Epidemiology Bineyam Taye and Angie Zhu ’26 conducted a study, supported by a grant from the Picker Interdisciplinary Science Institute, examining how household food insecurity influences gut microbiome composition of Ethiopian schoolchildren. Their findings were published in the journal Nutrients this February.
The gut microbiome is significantly influenced by diet and plays a crucial role in numerous essential metabolic processes. The primary objective of this research was to gain a deeper understanding of how the microbiome changes or interacts with the most common parasites in schoolchildren, thereby developing a better understanding of why food insecurity is linked to poor health.
Many previous studies have discussed the long-term, often intergenerational impact food insecurity has on human health using demographic or economic indicators, but there is a lack of available data from non-European countries. Taye and Zhu took a biological approach to better understand the gut microbiome structure of Ethiopian schoolchildren. The team collected fecal samples, extracted and sequenced microbial DNA, and analyzed the resulting profiles to identify which microbes were most prevalent among food-insecure children.
Zhu employed 16S rRNA sequencing and machine learning tools to generate and analyze data. An applied math major with minors in computer science and biology, she conducted this work in Taye’s global health epidemiology laboratory and has since been accepted to the PhD program at Tufts University, beginning in fall 2026.
Zhu led the computational analysis by processing raw sequencing data, identifying patterns in microbial composition, and producing publication-quality figures and figure legends. She also led all coding and data analysis, and worked alongside Taye throughout the manuscript writing process, including drafting and editing the literature review.
“In microbiome studies, we can perform all kinds of data analysis and obtain huge piles of figures and results,” Zhu says. “The challenging part then becomes digging through all of the data analysis to extract the interesting results to interpret and shape a cohesive story.”
The research revealed that household food insecurity is associated with a distinct and predictable gut microbiome composition. Limited food variety, consumption of disliked food, and reduced meal size emerged as factors tied to microbiome shifts. Additionally, Taye and Zhu identified the genus Sutterella as a potential biomarker for food insecurity.
Looking ahead, this research opens the door for a multidimensional understanding of food insecurity. Future studies could examine additional risk factors and diagnostic indicators — including a deeper investigation into Sutterella and the specific mechanisms by which it may influence food security outcomes.
“Through this research, it is clear that bacterial information can help predict an individual’s food insecurity status,” says Taye. “In the future, the composition of the gut microbiome, along with social and economic development indicators, may provide new ways to better understand the hunger crisis.”