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May 13, 2016 02:00 pm

National Microbiome Initiative To Harness Microbes For Health, Environment

An anonymous reader quotes a report from WTOP: The National Microbiome Initiative being announced by White House science officials Friday aims to bring together scientists who study the microbes that live in the human gut and in the oceans, in farm soil and in hospitals -- to speed discoveries that could bring big payoffs. Consider: Taking antibiotics alters the diversity of your gut bacteria, which eventually settle into a new normal. The 2010 oil spill altered microbes in the Gulf of Mexico, which likewise settled into a new normal, said Dr. Jo Handelsman, associate director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Despite the parallels, "we have no idea if that's a healthier norm or a less healthy norm than before, and no idea how to fix it," said Handelsman, who led development of the initiative. The U.S. government spends about $300 million a year on microbiome research, until now mostly an effort to catalog different communities of bacteria, viruses and other microbes, Handelsman said. The National Microbiome Initiative will add $121 million this year and next for ecosystem-crossing federal research. And in partnership with the government, dozens of universities, foundations and other organizations are announcing more than $400 million in additional microbiome research investments, she said. The ultimate goal is to control and alter microbes to improve either human or environmental health. One of the most recent discoveries was of a gut microbe that completely lacks mitochondria.

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