Abstract
When most people think of human development, they tend to consider only human cells and organs. Yet there is another facet that involves human-associated microbial communities. A microbial perspective of human development provides opportunities to refine our definitions of healthy prenatal and postnatal growth and to develop innovative strategies for disease prevention and treatment. Given the dramatic changes in lifestyles and disease patterns that are occurring with globalization, we issue a call for the establishment of 'human microbial observatories' designed to examine microbial community development in birth cohorts representing populations with diverse anthropological characteristics, including those undergoing rapid change.
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Acknowledgements
Work cited from the authors' laboratories was supported in part by grants from the US National Institutes of Health (DK30292, HD061923, AT007079 and AT008759), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the March of Dimes Foundation and the Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Endowment at Stanford University.
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J.I.G. is co-founder of Matatu, a company that is characterizing the role of diet-by-microbiota interactions in animal health. On completion of his PhD studies, M.R.C. joined Matatu as a research scientist. C.B.L and D.A.M. are co-founders of Evolve Biosystems, a company that is focused on the diet-based manipulation of the gut microbiota. D.A.R. is a member of the scientific advisory board of Seres Health. L.V.B and D.B.D. declare no competing financial interests.
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Charbonneau, M., Blanton, L., DiGiulio, D. et al. A microbial perspective of human developmental biology. Nature 535, 48–55 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18845
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18845
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