Alan WALKER is a microbiologist with specific research interests in the bacteria that inhabit the gastrointestinal tracts of mammalian hosts. He is Senior Lecturer/Principal Investigator at The Rowett Institute within the University of Aberdeen, and his current research uses a combination of anaerobic culturing and DNA sequencing techniques to better characterise gut microbial communities, and shed light on the roles these microbes play both in health and in disease. Much of his current research is focussed on interactions between host diet and the gut microbiota, and on the impact that diet-responsive gut bacteria may play in protecting the host against infectious disease.