Kevin Foster

Professorial Fellow in Microbiology

Kevin Foster, Professorial Fellow in Microbiology

Biography:

Professor Kevin Foster is the Chair of Microbiology at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford. Prior to this, he was Professor of Evolutionary Biology in the departments of Biology and Biochemistry at Oxford. Before Oxford, he had a lab at Harvard as a Bauer Fellow in the FAS Center for Systems Biology. He did his undergrad at Cambridge in Natural Sciences and his Ph.D. at the University of Sheffield in evolutionary biology.

Research

Professor Foster’s research integrates the traditional fields of ecology and evolution with the latest methods in computation, microbiology, molecular genetics, and the study of the mammalian microbiome. His lab focuses on how bacteria compete and succeed in their communities and seeks to use this to manipulate gut communities for better health.

Selected publications

Spragge, F., Bakkeren, E., Jahn, M. T., BN Araujo, E., Pearson, C. F., Wang, X., Pankhurst, L., Cunrath, O. & Foster, K. R. Microbiome diversity protects against pathogens by nutrient blocking. Science 382, eadj3502 (2023).

Booth, S. C., Smith, W. P. & Foster, K. R.The evolution of short-and long-range weapons for bacterial competition. Nature Ecology & Evolution 7, 2080-2091 (2023).

Coyte, K. Z., Rao, C., Rakoff-Nahoum, S. & Foster, K. R. Ecological rules for the assembly of microbiome communities. PLoS biology 19, e3001116 (2021).

Foster, K. R., Schluter, J., Coyte, K. Z. & Rakoff-Nahoum, S. The evolution of the host microbiome as an ecosystem on a leash. Nature 548, 43-51 (2017).

McLoughlin, K., Schluter, J., Rakoff-Nahoum, S., Smith, A. L. & Foster, K. R. Host selection of microbiota via differential adhesion. Cell host & microbe 19, 550-559 (2016).

Coyte, K. Z., Schluter, J. & Foster, K. R. The ecology of the microbiome: networks, competition, and stability. Science 350, 663-666 (2015).

Oliveira, N. M., Martinez-Garcia, E., Xavier, J., Durham, W. M., Kolter, R., Kim, W. & Foster, K. R. Biofilm formation as a response to ecological competition. PLoS biology 13, e1002191 (2015).

Foster, K. R. & Bell, T. Competition, not cooperation, dominates interactions among culturable microbial species. Current biology 22, 1845-1850 (2012).

Xavier, J. B. & Foster, K. R. Cooperation and conflict in microbial biofilms. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104, 876-881 (2007).

10 Foster, K. R., Shaulsky, G., Strassmann, J. E., Queller, D. C. & Thompson, C. R. Pleiotropy as a mechanism to stabilize cooperation. Nature 431, 693-696 (2004).