Unified Microbiome Initiative

A consortium of 48 scientists from 50 institutions in the U.S. are calling for a Unified Microbiome Initiative that would span national cross-institutional and cross-governmental agency support. The group, called the Unified Microbiome Initiative Consortium (UMIC), envisions that a coordinated effort would drive forward cutting edge microbiome research.

A Unified Microbiome Initiative to accelerate microbiome research would unlock new insights, speed translation of discoveries into numerous potential technologies for health, industry, and the environment.

The new group aims to look at: understanding how microbes assemble into communities and what makes them resilient or resistant to perturbation, how genes in the microbiome interact with one another, which genes in the microbiome are associated with which organisms, as well as how we can beneficially harness the microbiomes of humans, animals, plants and environments.

For further details see:

A. P. Alivisatos, M. J. Blaser, E. L. Brodie, M. Chun, J. L. Dangl, T. J. Donohue, P. C. Dorrestein, J. A. Gilbert, J. L. Green, J. K. Jansson, R. Knight, M. E. Maxon, M. J. McFall-Ngai, J. F. Miller, K. S. Pollard, E. G. Ruby, S. A. Taha. A unified initiative to harness Earth's microbiomes. Science, 2015; 350 (6260): 507 DOI: 10.1126/science.aac8480



Posted by Tim Sandle