As part of $3K in 3 Weeks, here is the first in a series of articles on current research initiatives related to Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
The Human Gut Microbiome Initiative, based at the Genome Center of Washington University in St. Louis,1 is the first major investigation into the thousands of species of bacteria that live in the human digestive system.
What’s a microbiome? The “microbiome” is defined as all bacteria in the human body, as well as all the products they make. To put this in perspective, scientists estimate that as much as 90% of the cells in the human body are actually bacteria.2 In the past, since most of the species of bacteria found in the human body could not be cultured (grown outside the body for study), we’ve been essentially clueless about how those bacteria functioned and their potential role in the human body. Read the rest of this entry »
- The Human Gut Microbiome Initiative is under the direction of Dr. Jeffrey I. Gordon of Washington University, a gastroenterologist and Director of the Center for Genome Sciences, and Dr. Rob Knight, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Colorado, an expert in bioinformatics. [↩]
- That’s not a typo! For every traditional human cell in you, there are nine bacteria cells. [↩]
