Human Microbiome Project awards funds for technology development, data analysis and ethical research
Oct 7, 2008 - 4:00:00 AM
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The development of new tools and technologies is central to our ability to meet the goals of the Human Microbiome Project, said Alan Krensky, M.D., director of the Office of Portfolio Analysis and Strategic Initiatives, which oversees the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. An exceptional amount of information will be generated by this project and we need robust technologies and analytical tools that are equal to the task.
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By NIH/National Human Genome Research Institute,
[RxPG]
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) today announced the first awards for its Human Microbiome Project, which will lay a foundation for efforts to explore how complex communities of microbes interact with the human body to influence health and disease. The funding, estimated to be up to approximately $21.2 million, will support the development of innovative technologies and computational tools, coordination of data analysis and an examination of some of the ethical, legal and social implications of human microbiome research.
The human microbiome consists of all of the DNA, or genomes, of all the microorganisms present in or on the human body. Launched in 2007 as part of the NIH's Roadmap for Medical Research, the Human Microbiome Project is a five-year effort that will produce a resource for researchers who are seeking to use information about the microbiome to improve human health.
Today marks the beginning of efforts by researchers to put in place the framework for understanding how microorganisms interact with our bodies to affect health and disease, said NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D. Developing new and more cost-effective technologies will be essential to applying knowledge about the human microbiome to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of a wide array of conditions.
Initially, researchers plan to sequence 600 microbial genomes, completing a collection that will total some 1,000 microbial genomes. The remaining microbial genomes are being contributed to the collection by individual NIH institutes and internationally funded projects. Those data will then be used to characterize the microbial communities present in samples taken from healthy human volunteers. The samples will be collected from five areas of the body: the digestive tract, the mouth, the skin, the nose and the vagina.
After researchers generate profiles of microbial communities in healthy people, they will conduct demonstration projects to sample the microbiomes of volunteers with specific diseases. This will allow researchers to see if there are changes in the microbiome at particular body sites that correlate to specific diseases.
Traditionally, microbiology has focused on the study of individual species of microorganisms as isolated units, making it difficult to inventory all of the microbes in and on the human body. Because microbial growth is dependent upon a specific natural environment, it often is difficult to recreate microbe-host interactions in the laboratory.
Recent advances in DNA sequencing technologies have accelerated a process called metagenomic sequencing. Instead of focusing on the genomes of individual microbes, metagenomic sequencing analyzes all of the DNA of all of the microbes found within a sample.
Much of the work being funded in the first round of the Human Microbiome Project is aimed at improving and refining the identification of microbes that constitute the microbiome. Computational tools will also be developed to optimize the assembly of sequencing data to infer the location and function of genes, as well to classify microbial species.
The development of new tools and technologies is central to our ability to meet the goals of the Human Microbiome Project, said Alan Krensky, M.D., director of the Office of Portfolio Analysis and Strategic Initiatives, which oversees the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. An exceptional amount of information will be generated by this project and we need robust technologies and analytical tools that are equal to the task.
The principal investigators who will develop new technologies and computational tools, their approximate funding levels and their areas of research are:
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