The Decade Of The Microbiome

Microbiome. Today, it’s a household word.

But a decade ago, “microbiome” was unheard of, unless you were a specific type of scientist. The microbiome is the collection of microbes in an ecosystem, whether in the human gut or a boreal forest.

These community of microbes were incredibly difficult to study before the rise of sequencing technology, which became cheaper at a pace faster than Moore’s law throughout the 2010s. The availability of this technique cascaded into a boom in products and academic research centered around the microbiome.

Industry

Turn on the TV, and the word “microbiome” shows up in commercials for household products. Microbiome research has also come with the creation of countless startups and companies looking to create products to improve our lives, from probiotic formula that could help infants get the “right” microbiome to daily probiotics to boost health in adults.

However, microbiome science is a new field, and one of the challenges is performing cross-cutting research that can link changes in the microbiome to mechanistic changes or outcomes. Consumers, in particular, face challenges trying to determine if a product really elicits a change, or if the change in the microbiome doesn’t actually change the outcome they are looking for.

Academic Research

With the rise of microbiome research centers across the country, two biologists at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) decided to create and lead the Microbiome Centers Consortium. Research across multiple fields using techniques and methods related to microbiome science is rapidly changing. The UCI biologists thought that a consortium to share innovations, challenges, and solutions could improve the quality and quantity of academic microbiome research.

Now, researchers from ecologists to immunologists use the microbiome in their research, thanks to the various centers that provide expertise and instruments at their universities.

Health: Researchers are studying the community of microbes that are in and on our bodies. In our bodies, the microbiome plays a role in our health, including mediating metabolic and inflammatory disorders, cancer, depression, infant health and longevity.

Ecosystems: Let’s not forget the microbiome of the air, soil, and oceans. In ecosystems, the microbiome performs irreplaceable ecosystem services, from breaking down dead material to forming the foundation of energy available to living beings. Microbes in the air help seed clouds, which could impact the clouds’ reflectivity and how much rain they bring. Microbes form beneficial partnerships with corals. Understanding the role of the environmental microbiome could help us better predict processes, such as carbon cycling.

What exciting new discoveries and solutions—from improving human health to climate change mitigation—will microbiome science in the 2020s bring to society?