Following is a conversation with Dr Indrani Mukhopadhyay, a lecturer at the Institute of Medical Sciences Microbiology and Immunology Group at the University of Aberdeen. Over the last ten years, we’ve started to understand more and more about why the virome is important in both health and disease. Indrani is an expert in the viral and has been involved in some of the seminal research to characterise profiles and help us understand why the virus is important. So if you're interested in that, this is a great episode for you. We also spoke about probiotics and what a next-generation probiotic might be in terms of its composition, structure and function. We spoke about Indrani's career progression. She's been all over the world involved in exciting research and setting up her new lab recently here in Aberdeen. So we covered a range of topics.  Finally, we spoke about inflammatory bowel disease, how the viral elements of the microbiome might be important and how specific depletions of bacteria might be important too.  As always, I wanted to thank you, the listener, for tuning in and for supporting the podcast. It's fantastic to get the feedback we've been getting about people enjoying it and if you are enjoying it and haven't yet liked and subscribed, please do that. Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:52 - How did you get into the field of the microbiome? 00:06:32 - Research into developing vaccines 00:12:58 - Effectiveness of vaccines 00:14:24 - Complexity of the rotavirus 00:16:28 - Seasonal flu 00:20:01 - Viruses in our gut 00:24:17 - Viral metagenomics 00:33:06 - Knowledge of viruses greater than of bacteria 00:35:53 - What’s the most important part of the microbiome? 00:37:06 - Bacteriophages 00:40:15 - Enteric viruses 00:41:29 - Fungus in the gut 00:42:39 - Viruses keep bacteria in check 00:43:07 - Most exciting development in microbiome research 00:46:10 - Women in science 00:47:00 - Immunomodulator’s effects on gut viruses. 00:49:23 - Next-generation probiotics 00:52:20 - Taking probiotic supplements 00:54:28 - Manufacturing bacteria to treat patients 00:55:39 - Benefits of single strain vs consortia 00:56:34 - Universally beneficial probiotic? 01:00:25 - Thanks and conclusion