Research
The evidence base.
Original papers, in-depth reviews of the literature, methods, and the field's landscape — the full evidence base of microbial metallomics.
Explore Karen Pendergrass’s research on heavy metals and microbial metallomics, alongside this guide’s reviews of the wider literature. Her author profile connects the published frameworks with Microbiome Medicine, the Heavy Metal Index, and contaminant standards.
Reading the evidence closely
Assessments of published papers, their strengths, limitations, and unanswered questions.
1 commentary Paper ReviewsThe Research Library
In-depth reviews of the key published studies linking metals, the microbiome, and disease.
37 reviews & case studies The BlogThe Metal–Microbiome–Disease Axis
Long-form essays examining possible mechanisms linking metal exposure, microbial communities, and disease.
10 posts MethodsHow the Metallome Is Measured
ICP-MS, synchrotron X-ray spectroscopy, native mass spectrometry, and metalloproteomics.
LandscapeThe Research Landscape
Journals, societies, synchrotron facilities, funders, and a timeline of landmark discoveries.
Original Research
Papers from this group
Original preprints and articles developing the microbial-metallomics framework, published open-access on Zenodo.
Six Decades of Fertilizer Use Built a Legacy of Cadmium, Nickel, and Lead in Soils and Diets
A food metallomics review (1960–2025) showing how phosphate and urea fertilizers loaded soils, crops, and diets with cadmium, nickel, lead, and chromium.
Read →Heavy Metals and Microbial Metallomics: A New Framework for the US Obesity Epidemic
How dietary cadmium, arsenic, lead, and nickel may disrupt gut microbial metallomics—driving dysbiosis, inflammation, and insulin resistance behind obesity.
Read →Developmental Readiness Is Not Toxicokinetic Safety: Heavy Metals in Vegetable-Based Baby Foods
Developmental readiness for solids does not ensure toxicokinetic safety: leafy greens, brassicas and root crops concentrate lead, cadmium and arsenic in baby foods.
Read →Concentration-Based Heavy Metal Standards to Reduce Real Exposure in Infant and Child Foods
HMTc 2026 sets concentration-based, as-sold action levels for lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, nickel and other heavy metals in infant and child foods.
Read →Nickel as a Catalytic Driver of Necrotizing Enterocolitis
Dietary nickel in infant formula may activate nickel-dependent microbial enzymes (urease, glyoxalase I) that drive necrotizing enterocolitis in preterm infants.
Read →A Unified Model for FIP-Associated Gingivitis in Cats: Disrupting Microbial Shielding and Restoring Nutritional Immunity
How itraconazole and lactoferrin may treat FIP-linked gingivitis in cats by disrupting polymicrobial biofilms and restoring metal-based nutritional immunity.
Read →Microbiome Medicine Journal: Restoring Causal Structure to Disease Through Microbial Metallomics
Microbiome Medicine Journal Vol. I sets out a mechanism-first framework linking microbial ecology, host metallome regulation, and metal dyshomeostasis to disease.
Read →From Dysbiosis to Dyshomeostasis: Reframing Parkinson's Through a Metallomic–Microbiome Lens
A metallomics framework reframes Parkinson's as metal dyshomeostasis: iron, manganese, copper, zinc and nickel dysregulation drives dysbiosis and neuron loss.
Read →The MC1R–Parkinson's Link May Be a Metallomic Story, Not a Cosmetic One
A hypothesis linking MC1R red-hair variants to Parkinson's risk via melanin-metal chemistry: how copper, zinc, and iron shape neuromelanin's redox buffering.
Read →Parkinson's Disease as a Disorder of Metal Dyshomeostasis Amplified by Microbial Ecology
A synthesis framework proposing Parkinson's disease begins with heavy-metal dyshomeostasis that drives ferroptosis, gut dysbiosis, and α-synuclein pathology.
Read →