Researchers Establish International Human Microbiome Consortium

Researchers Establish International Human Microbiome Consortium

Coordinated Global Effort to Investigate Role of Microbes in Human Health and Disease

Bethesda, Md., Thu., Oct. 16, 2008 - Scientists from around the globe, meeting today in Heidelberg, Germany, announced the formation of the International Human Microbiome Consortium (IHMC), an effort that will enable researchers to characterize the relationship of the human microbiome in the maintenance of health and in disease.

The human microbiome is the collective genomes of all microorganisms living in or on the human body. The IHMC will generate a shared data resource from international projects that will be made freely available to the global scientific community. Research organizations from all nations supporting similar research efforts are invited to become participants.

In related news, leaders from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, signed a letter of intent in September with the European Commission (EC) officially agreeing to combine the data from the NIH Human Microbiome Project and the EC Metagenomics of the Human Intestinal Tract (MetaHIT) project. Both projects, which are already under way, will contribute an initial set of microbial genomes to the IHMC.

Current participants in the IHMC include:

• Australia: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization
• Canada: Canadian Institutes of Health Research
• China: Meta-GUT project (Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST)) Sino-French collaboration; Human Gut Microbiome and Infections Human Gut Microbiome and Infections
• Europe: European Commission
• France: Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)
• Ireland: The DAFF/HRB elderly gut metagenomics project (ELDERMET)
• Japan: Human Metagenome Consortium Japan (HMGJ)
• Korea: Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs
• United States: National Institutes of Health

The IHMC will organize a steering committee that may include representatives from each country's research funding agency, as well as a representative from each scientific project. The steering committee will develop voluntary standards related to quality assurance of data, coordination of microbial strains for complete genome sequencing projects, data access and release and informed consent.

The IHMC is interested in:

• open, free and rapid data release in accordance with donor consent
• common quality standards for data
• sharing of protocols and informed consent documents
• sharing of information about progress of each project
• a common approach to publication

Trillions of microorganisms live in and on the human body. Scientists have recently begun sequencing the DNA of microbial communities to learn how microbes can help maintain our health or contribute to disease. For instance, research has suggested that fluctuations in the composition of microbial communities contribute to diabetes, asthma, obesity and a variety of digestive disorders.

Each participating research group plans to focus on describing different body sites and diseases, while the US and EC will also contribute to a reference set of completely sequenced microbial genomes.

Data generated by IHMC projects will be made available through the NIH Human Microbiome Project Data Analysis and Coordination Center, led by Owen White, Ph.D., University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore and an equivalent center at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), led by Peer Bork, Ph.D. The data will also be distributed to other public databases, including those supported by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov), part of the National Library of Medicine.

The IHMC chairmanship will rotate annually and the co-chairs for 2009 are Christian Desaintes, Ph.D., from the European Commission and S. Dusko Ehrlich, Ph.D., coordinator of the MetaHIT project.

Indicating intent to participate in the International Human Microbiome is not a legally binding obligation nor does it require the participants to commit federal funds or resources.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) - The Nation's Medical Research Agency - includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

Contact

Geoff Spencer
301-402-0911
spencerg@mail.nih.gov

Last Updated: February 26, 2013