Joseph (joe) F. Pierre PhD

Joseph F. Pierre is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, affiliated with the Divisions of Neonatology and Pediatric Obesity, at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. As an experimental biologist and gastrointestinal physiologist, he employs translational models to understand how gut microbial communities (bacteria, yeast, and fungi) and their metabolites influence host metallic outcomes following bariatric surgery, liver transplantation, and parenteral nutrition. He is also interested in how early life microbial colonization influences subsequent metabolic disease risk. Dr. Pierre founded and directs a germ-free/gnotobiotic mouse facility where mice are maintained under sterile or known microbial colonization states. Using gnotobiotic animals, he and colleagues examine how known microbial communities causally influence host homeostasis. He holds a joint appointment as Assistant Professor of Microbiology, Immunology, and Biochemistry and is a faculty member of the Biomedical Sciences Program in the College of Graduate Health Sciences.

Dr. Pierre received his Bachelor of Science in Natural Sciences and his Ph.D. in Nutritional Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he researched the role of parenteral and enteral nutrition upon gastrointestinal immune function. He then completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Chicago in Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition under the mentorship of Eugene B. Chang, where he investigated the microbiome, mycobiome, microbiome-diet interactions, and bile acid metabolism.