Issue link: https://cp.revolio.com/i/755637
Page 8| Abby's Magazine - www.AbbysMag.com Microscopic study of the healthy human body has demonstrated that microbial cells outnumber human cells by about ten to one. Until recently though, this abundant community of human-associated microbes remained largely unstudied, leaving their influence upon human development, physiology, immunity, and nutrition almost entirely unknown. The NIH Common Fund Human Microbiome Project (HMP) was established with the mission of generating research resources enabling comprehensive characterization of the human microbiota and analysis of their role in human health and disease. Traditionally, microorganisms have been studied as cultures in the laboratory. However, the vast majority of human-associated microbial species have never been successfully isolated in the laboratory, presumably because Human MICROBIOME PROJECT their growth is dependent upon specific conditions or substances which have not been duplicated in the laboratory. Advances in DNA sequencing technologies have created a new field of research, called metagenomics, allowing comprehensive examination of microbial communities without the need for cultivation. Instead of examining the genomes of individual bacterial strains that have been grown in the laboratory and then trying to reassemble the community of microbes, the meta-genomic approach allows analysis of genetic material harvested directly from microbial communities without the need to culture the microbes. In the HMP, this approach is complementing genetic analyses of available reference strains, providing unprecedented information about the complexity of human-associated microbial communities. Other advanced 'omics technologies like transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics, which measure the biological properties of whole microbial communities, are being used to provide insights into how the microbiome and human host interact to support health or to trigger disease.