Milestone 

Milestones in human microbiota research

The human body is home to trillions of microorganisms that have direct and indirect impacts on health and disease. The microbiota that resides on and within us is a diverse community of bacteria, archaea, viruses, and fungi. This ‘Milestones in Human Microbiota Research’ provides a historical perspective of the breakthroughs in the field as well as future research directions.

Various coloured microbes

This Milestone is editorially independent, produced with financial support from a third party. About this content.

Project Leads: Nonia Pariente, Ashley York
Editorial Leads: Nonia Pariente, Ashley York, Ursula Hofer, Alison Farrell
Production Editor: Simon Fenwick
Art Editor: Jason Mischka
Multimedia Producers: Charlotte Stoddart, Benjamin Thompson, Shamini Bundell
Multimedia Editor (Podcasts): Anand Jagatia
Animator: Rosanna Wan
Publishing Manager: Rebecca Ratty
Web Production Manager: Nick Bruni
Marketing: Nicole Jackson
Commercial Project Managers: Anushree Roy, Shoko Hasegawa
Sponsorship: Yuko Takai
Copyediting: Chloe Rees-Spear

We gratefully acknowledge scientific advice from:

Manimozhiyan Arumugam (University of Copenhagen, Denmark)

Fredrik Bäckhed (University of Gothenburg, Sweden)

Yasmine Belkaid (National Institutes of Health, USA)

Elisabeth Bik (Microbiome Digest, USA)

Martin Blaser (Rutgers University, USA)

Peer Bork (European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Germany)

Frederic Bushman (University of Pennsylvania, USA)

Laurie Comstock (Harvard University, USA)

John Cryan (University College Cork, Ireland)

Willem de Vos (Wageningen University, The Netherlands)

Rochellys Diaz Heijtz (Karolinska Institutet, Sweden)

Eran Elinav (Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel)

Brett Finlay (University of British Columbia, Canada)

Wendy Garrett (Harvard University, USA)

Kenya Honda (Keio University, Japan)

Elaine Hsiao (University of California, Los Angeles, USA)

Sean Kearney (Keio University, Japan)

Rob Knight (University of California, San Diego, USA)

Ruth Ley (Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Germany)

Sarkis Mazmanian (The California Institute of Technology, USA)

Cathryn Nagler (The Univeristy of Chicago, USA)

Eric Pamer (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, USA)

Lita Proctor (National Institutes of Health, USA)

David Relman (Stanford University, USA)

Julie Segre (National Institutes of Health, USA)

Fergus Shanahan (University College Cork, Ireland)

Justin Sonnenburg (Stanford University, USA)

Alan Walker (University of Aberdeen, UK)

Jennifer Wargo (University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, USA)

Paul Wilmes (University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg)

Liping Zhao (Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China)

Contributing journals

Nature
Nature Chemical Biology
Nature Communications
Nature Immunology
Nature Medicine
Nature Methods
Nature Microbiology
Nature Protocols
Nature Reviews Disease Primers
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery
Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Nature Reviews Microbiology
Nature Reviews Neuroscience
Nature Reviews Urology