Our Mission
Food allergies have risen dramatically over the past several decades, coinciding with global shifts toward more Westernized diets, increased formula use, and widespread antibiotic exposure in early life. These changes strongly shape the developing gut microbiome, which plays a central role in training the immune system during infancy. Yet we still know surprisingly little about how early diet and the microbes that colonize the infant gut work together to influence whether a child develops food allergies or grows out of them.
Our lab at the University of Maryland School of Medicine within the Center for Advanced Microbiome Research and Innovation (CAMRI) and the Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS), is dedicated to answering these questions. We study how the gut microbiome develops in early life, how it processes dietary proteins including food allergens, and how these microbial activities influence immune tolerance and allergy risk.
A core focus of our research is a new and largely unexplored area in allergy biology: the ability of early life gut microbes assocaite with food allergy development and how this interaction is shaped by early life diet. By integrating metagenomics, proteomics, immunology, gnotobiotic and orgonoid models, and advanced computational methods, we work to identify microbial and metabolic pathways that predict allergy development and response to treatment.
Our projects are deeply connected to NIH funded clinical trials and cohort studies. These collaborations allow us to link mechanistic discoveries in the lab with real world clinical outcomes in infants and children.
For trainees and researchers, the Özçam Lab offers hands on experience in microbiome science, food allergy biology, multi-omics data analysis with machine learning, and translational research that has the potential to inform prevention and therapy. We are committed to building a collaborative, inclusive, and intellectually stimulating environment where curiosity drives discovery and science has a direct impact on children’s health.
Please check our recent publications and open positions.