ABOVE: A scanning electron micrograph of bacterial biofilms attached to vaginal epithelium, sampled from a study participant who had inflammation caused by bacterial overgrowth, or bacterial vaginosis.
JUDY WILLIAMSON AND KIMBERLY K. JEFFERSON, VIRIGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY
In 2008, the National Institutes of Health funded the Human Microbiome Project—an ambitious project, similar to the Human Genome Project—aimed at characterizing the incredibly complex microbes that live in and on each of us. Six years later, the program expanded to become the integrative Human Microbiome Project (iHMP), with a goal of understanding how the microbiome in different parts of the body changes overtime and in various states of health such as pregnancy or disease.
Three studies from the iHMP, published today (May 29) in Nature and Nature Medicine, connect microbial composition to type 2 diabetes, pregnancy, and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Each study included data from thousands of blood samples, biopsies, and microbial swabs ...
