Dr. Karen Nelson is a Jamaican-born American microbiologist who specializes in human microbiome research - that is, the study of the genetic material in the micro-organisms found in different parts of the human body e.g. skin and intestines with a focus on how these microbes impact human health. She was born in Kingston and went to St. Hugh's High School after which she completed her B.Sc. in zoology at the UWI. Dr. Nelson planned to become a veterinarian, but once she took human and animal nutrition classes in college, she became fascinated by microbiology. Her interests brought her to study ruminant microbiology at Cornell and she learned that an animal’s native microbial populations could be critical to its health and well-being. This led her to complete her Ph.D. in Microbiology at Cornell University and she is now an expert in microbial ecology, physiology and genomics. Her early work focused on a variety of microbes with economic significance - of particular note was her publication of the genome of the bacterium, Thermatoga maritima a bacterium believed to have potential for energy production through its ability to produce hydrogen. Her current research focuses on interactions between human microbiome and various diseases. Dr. Nelson and her team were responsible for the publication of the first human metagenomics study, that is a study of the structure and function of entire nucleotide sequences isolated and analyzed from all the organisms in a bulk sample from a human. She is currently the Chief Scientific Officer at Thermo Fisher Scientific and has been listed as one of the Top 25 Women Leaders in Biotechnology for 2022 by the Healthcare Technology Report.
Dr. Karen Nelson
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Life Science
Chief Scientific Officer
Jamaica
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