NIH builds substantial human microbiome project

Abstract

The NIH began planning the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) in 2007, committing $140 million to an initial five-year effort. During its first phase, five academic centers were charged with creating a reference catalogue of microbial DNA, recruiting healthy adults for microbial sampling, and performing 16S rRNA gene analyses on bacteria from several anatomic sites. The second phase of HMP, which includes demonstration projects, is designed to test the initiative's ability to answer key questions, including how an individual's personal microbial signature relates to health and disease. Microbiologists are encouraged to collaborate with HMP by contributing microbial isolates from human anatomic sites for genomic sequencing. Copyright © 2009 American Society for Microbiology.