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In October 2018, we announced the development of the Microbiota Vault—an international microbiome preservation effort, to be housed somewhere in a very cold former mine or bunker in Northern Europe. The Microbiota Vault represents an opportunity to develop a global, nonprofit, nongovernmental organization for the preservation of humanity’s microbial heritage as a way to counter the possible erosion of the microbial diversity associated with our bodies and environments around the world.
Other groups, such as the Global Microbiome Conservancy (GMC), are working to preserve the microbial diversity of our bodies, and samples from such efforts must also be stored in a safe, politically neutral, stable location. As such, the Microbiota Vault is aimed at ensuring that no matter what happens, we can back up our microbial selves for future generations.
Since we initiated the Microbiota Vault effort, the program has expanded to include not just human-associated ...
