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Bacteria and other microbes have ruled the planet for at least 3.5 billion years, but only in the last century have we begun to appreciate their dominance. We now know that every environment has its own unseen community — its own microbiome. Microbes in the soil drive planetary cycles of important elements like carbon and nitrogen. Microbes in the oceans produce much of the oxygen we breathe. Microbes in our bodies build our organs, safeguard our health, and even steer our behavior. Thanks to these revelations, microbes have become fashionable. They’ve attracted the attention of magazine editors, book writers, museum curators, and documentary makers. Now, they’ve even stormed the Oval Office.
In 2013, President Obama appointed Jo Handelsman, a pioneer of the modern age of microbiome science, as the associate director for science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Over the last year, Handelsman, with support from the Kavli Foundation, has facilitated three successive workshops—first with scientists, and later including funding agencies and industry representatives — to determine the big remaining mysteries of the microbiome and hash out ways of solving them.
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The result is a proposal, penned by a group of leading microbiologists, for a Unified Microbiome Initiative (UMI) — a national coordinated effort to develop the tools we need to truly unlock the secrets of the microbial world. It will do for microbes what the BRAIN Initiative is doing for neuroscience.
Read full, original post: Hey Obama, Can We Have A Unified Microbiome Initiative?
