The human microbiome—the community of microorganisms (such as bacteria, fungi, and viruses) that live in and on the human body—impacts a variety of biological processes in both health and disease. But the molecular mechanisms driving this microbiome–host crosstalk remain poorly understood. For her BroadIgnite project, Soumya plans to develop high-throughput strategies to identify interactions between the microbiome proteins found throughout the human body, including the gut, mouth, skin, and more, and human proteins as well as characterize their biological functions—research that can eventually decode microbiome-associated disease pathways.