Leading scientists propose a Unified Microbiome Initiative

This week, a group of leading microbiome scientists proposed a Unified Microbiome Initiative (UMI) “to discover and advance tools to understand and harness the capabilities of Earth’s microbial ecosystems.” Microorganisms inhabit almost every habitat on Earth and a better understanding of the dynamics of these habitats could lead to new innovations in all of these sectors.

The scientists argue that while there have been significant advances in understanding the diversity of microbial communities, they lack the tools and technologies to enable predictive and actionable understanding of global microbiome processes. They state that cross-disciplinary collaborations are needed between diverse constituents to develop these tools.

You can read about the details of the various tools and technologies that are proposed here, however they all involve developing technology platforms leading to more applied applications of microbiome science. Much of what they propose is an extension of existing technologies that would lead to better understanding of how microbial communities function.

As we wrote about last month, the White House is already paying close attention to the microbiome and considering what the best plan would be for such an initiative. Many of the authors on this proposal were in attendance at that White House meeting and are working in collaboration with Jo Handelsman and her team.

It is important that there be unified efforts as major technological advances would lead to broad advances among all of Earth’s habitats. While we talk mostly about the human microbiome on this blog, the microbiome of the ocean, soil, and countless other environments are vitally important to maintaining the world’s well being. We highly recommend that people take a look at the pieces in Science and Nature. We are excited about these proposals and look forward to seeing what type of initiatives come out of this. 

Microbiome Innovation: Roadmap to the Future – Report from the White House

Last week the American Microbiome Institute was invited to the White House to attend the Microbiome Innovation: Roadmap to the Future conference. The conference was hosted by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, which is embracing microbiome science and its promise to revolutionize various fields of research, such as health, medicine, agriculture, ecology, and more.  The purpose of the symposium was to bring together representatives from industry, academia, government, foundations, and non-profits in order to come to a consensus and identify the major roadblocks that are obstructing microbiome science, across all disciplines.

Various agencies from the federal government kicked off the conference by discussing how microbiome science was important to their departments, such as the NSF, USAID, and NIH.  These talks prompted a lively discussion regarding C. difficile treatment and fecal microbiota transplants, and how the FDA should regulate them.  After, working groups were formed to debate and discuss important issues to the field.  For example, groups were tasked with defining a healthy microbiome, but the consensus was that this was difficult because of its dependency on the host.  In addition, groups discussed ways in which interdisciplinary microbiome research could be encouraged.  Two approaches that were recommended to incentivize this were to require grants to include an interdisciplinary component, and to have academic promotion and tenure reward PIs that perform this type of research. 

We at the AMI would like to thank the folks at OSTP for inviting us to the conference.  We actively participated in the discussions to let people know the areas that we have identified as needs, and the things that we are trying to do at the AMI to solve them.  As a non-profit devoted to the microbiome we have a unique perspective on the field, and a mandate to advance it.