From: deputydawg23x@gmail.com   
      
   The New York Times    
      
   Scientists Urge National Initiative on Microbiomes    
      
      
   Smoke rising from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, which altered the   
   diversity of microbes in the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists are seeking a major   
   investment in the study of the microbiome.    
   GERALD HERBERT / ASSOCIATED PRESS    
   By CARL ZIMMER    
   OCTOBER 28, 2015    
   Scores of leading scientists on Wednesday urged the creation of a major   
   initiative to better understand the microbial communities critical to both   
   human health and every ecosystem.    
      
   In two papers published simultaneously in the journals Science and Nature, the   
   scientists called for a government-led effort akin to the Brain Initiative, a   
   monumental multiyear project intended to develop new technologies to   
   understand the human brain.    
      
   "This is the beginning of the shot to the moon," said Jeffery F. Miller, the   
   director of the California NanoSystems Institute at the University of   
   California, Los Angeles, and a co-author of the Science paper. "There is so   
   much to learn, and so many    
   benefits of learning it."    
      
   The White House is already considering increasing its support of research into   
   the workings of these microbial communities, called microbiomes. The new   
   papers "are very thoughtful and have a lot to tell us," said Jo Handelsman,   
   the associate director of    
   the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and herself a   
   microbiologist.    
      
   As to whether there will be a national microbiome initiative, she said, "We   
   don't have anything to announce today."    
      
   Microbiomes have become the focus of intense study and public interest. The   
   trillions of microbes that live inside the human body, for example, play   
   important roles in health, from fighting diseases to maintaining a balanced   
   immune system.    
      
   But the planet is home to a vast number of other microbiomes, from the   
   microbial communities that live in undersea volcanoes to microbes that cling   
   to existence in Antarctic deserts. These play an instrumental role in the   
   environment: Ocean microbes, for    
   example, produce half of the oxygen we breathe.    
      
   Dr. Miller said a microbiome initiative could uncover fundamental explanations   
   for why things are the way they are. "It's like we're looking up in the sky   
   with a refractive telescopic for the first time and saying, 'Wow, it's amazing   
   what's up there.    
   What is all this doing? How does it work?' " he said.    
      
   Researchers have been investigating microbes for centuries, ever since Antonie   
   van Leeuwenhoek peered into a crude microscope in the mid-1600s and discovered   
   that a drop of water was full of tiny swimming creatures.    
      
   In recent decades, microbiologists have begun to map their astonishing   
   diversity. The animal kingdom contains about 40 major groups, or phyla.   
   Microbiologists now recognize upward of 1,000 phyla of microbes.    
      
   "Plants and animals are a patina on the microbial world," said Margaret J.   
   McFall-Ngai of the University of Hawaii, a co-author on both new papers.    
      
   Each of these communities of microbes can be dizzyingly complex. A single   
   human microbiome can be made up of trillions of microbes divided into   
   thousands of species.    
      
   Scientists cannot yet answer even basic questions about how these communities   
   function. In Science, 48 scientists described some of the most pressing   
   mysteries.    
      
   All microbiomes can change, for example, sometimes drastically. The Deepwater   
   Horizon oil spill altered the diversity of microbes in the Gulf of Mexico.   
   Likewise, a bad intestinal infection can drive out common gut species that   
   maintain human health.    
      
   These disturbances may seem dissimilar, but microbiologists believe that   
   unhealthy microbiomes may share certain universal signatures. Understanding   
   patterns like these might allow us to control the communities.    
      
   As yet, there are few examples of successful manipulation of microbiomes. The   
   best documented is a medical procedure known as fecal transplant. Patients   
   with life-threatening gut infections can be cured by receiving intestinal   
   bacteria from a healthy    
   donor.    
      
   Yet scientists are still at a loss to explain how individual species of   
   bacteria in such a transplant help battle infections. A fuller understanding   
   might open the way to using microbiome-based treatments for other ailments,   
   from tooth decay to obesity.    
      
   Dr. Miller said it might also be possible to tend to microbiomes outside our   
   bodies. Manipulating microbes in farm fields could increase the productivity   
   of crops, for example.    
      
   The tundra, too, contains vast amounts of methane-generating microbes that   
   could accelerate global warming. Understanding how that microbiome works might   
   lead to ways to control its effects on the climate.    
      
   Microbiomes are so complex, Dr. Miller cautioned, that it will take years to   
   achieve such a level of understanding. "This has to be structured as a   
   long-term effort," he said. "We are looking off in the distance, but along the   
   way there are many    
   milestones."    
      
   Answering the questions will demand new tools to gather and analyze data, Dr.   
   McFall-Ngai said. To understand how microbes behave, for instance, scientists   
   need a better way to see the molecular activity inside them.    
      
   "We want to pull out individual cells and ask, 'What are they doing?' " Dr.   
   McFall-Ngai said. "We have no methods for that."    
      
   In their commentary for Nature, Dr. McFall-Ngai and her co-authors, Nicole   
   Dubilier of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Germany and   
   Liping Zhao of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, urged the United States   
   to coordinate research    
   efforts on microbiomes with other countries.    
      
   "Earth's biome is not defined by national borders," they wrote.    
      
   Over the past year, the Kavli Foundation, a philanthropic science organization   
   based in California, has hosted a series of meetings for microbiome experts,   
   where they discussed the best way to move their research forward. The   
   foundation had organized a    
   similar set of workshops about neuroscience, which ultimately led to the Brain   
   Initiative.    
      
   The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy joined the effort with   
   a series of its own meetings and a public request for information for "an   
   effort to unify and focus microbiome research across sectors" of the   
   government.    
      
   The National Science and Technology Council will release a report on these   
   efforts by the end of the year, which will address how federal agencies can   
   coordinate the research they fund on the microbiome.    
      
      
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