Article on Gut Research Studies

[Guest guest]

Microbiome: How bugs may be crucial to your health

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120412-the-beasts-inside-you/1

Noteworthy:

*Code breakers *

This year sees the culmination of two major projects seeking to better

understand the full repertoire of bugs that colonize us -- what

scientists call the microbiome. In 2007, the United States government

launched a five-year, $157 million Human Microbiome Project

<http://www.hmpdacc.org/>, aimed at sequencing the genomes of microbial

populations living in the mouths, guts, armpits and other orifices of

300 healthy Americans.

The following year the European Commission launched a $29 million

project called Metagenomics of the Human Intestinal Tract

<http://www.metahit.eu/>, or MetaHIT, which focuses on gut bacteria

only. Initial findings from both efforts were presented at the

International Human Microbiome Congress in Paris last month. " Both have

made absolutely tremendous progress, " says Dusko Ehrlich, coordinator of

MetaHIT and research director at the National Institute for Agricultural

Research in France.