What motivated you to study the microbiome in rural Paraguay? 

Only recently were we able to decipher the Paraguayan gut microbiome — and that research was limited to urban populations in the Asunción metro area. Until then, no other work had been done with a Paraguayan population, meaning Paraguay was vastly underrepresented in microbiome studies. Since microbiomes can vary significantly across populations, the next logical step in my goal to put Paraguay on the microbiome map was to begin studying rural communities.