Microbiome Research Is Becoming the Key to Better Understanding Health and Nutrition

Article by Dirk Hadrich on the aims and evolution of microbiome research funded by the European Union

In this article Dirk Hadrich, European Commission Officer in the Health Directorate`s Innovative and Personalised Medicine Unit of the Directorate-General Research and Innovation, highlights the importance of the human microbiome in understanding and treating diseases and traces the EUs investment providing short summaries of past and ongoing initiatives.

Continuing the engagement started in the 7^th Framework Programme, the EU provides considerable financial resources to projects in the field of metagenomics and microbiome research. What has started with MetaHit and the production of a catalogue of gut microbes has evolved into a multitude of initiatives all generating valuable knowledge on the microbiome, nutrition, various hosts of microbes, and their relation to health and disease.

Within this framework SYSCID is highlighted as a multi-disciplinary action looking at how the microbiome is driving its resilience potential and our health. Focusing on inflammatory diseases knowledge is being generated guiding towards therapeutic manipulation of the microbiome to help cure diseases.

The article was published in frontiers in Genetics in June 2018 and is available open access here.