Dr. Patterson conducts translational research evaluating host-microbiome interactions during critical illness. She is investigating the gastrointestinal microbiome in patients with congenital heart disease and critical illness to establish ways microbiome changes impact patient nutritional and infectious disease outcomes. Her multidisciplinary team is working to establish a microbiome biorepository which will be foundational in the study of microbiome and metabolomic alterations during specific disease states and discovering treatments to optimize the gastrointestinal microbiome and improve patient outcomes.