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AGA supports national initiative for microbiome research
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The AGA has announced its support for the recent call-to-action issued by a number of scientific groups calling for an interdisciplinary, public-private “Unified Microbiome Initiative,” citing gastroenterology’s critical role in understanding the human gut microbiome.
“Understanding the gut microbiome is critical to advancing digestive disease patient care, and as such, AGA has made research and education around the gut microbiome an organizational priority,” Michael Camilleri, MD, AGAF, president of the AGA Institute, said in a press release. “AGA fully supports the call for a formal microbiome strategy and is eager to contribute our knowledge and resources related to the gut microbiome and its impact on health and disease.”
Michael Camilleri
The main goal of the Unified Microbiome Initiative is “to discover and advance tools to understand and harness the capabilities of Earth's microbial ecosystems,” according to scientists who proposed the initiative on behalf of the Unified Microbiome Initiative Consortium. “Fueled by the energy and vision of the scientific community and cross-cutting public and private partnerships, the [Unified Microbiome Consortium] will lead to scientific insights, technological advances, and economic opportunities of lasting benefit to future generations,” they wrote.
“The gut microbiome is a particularly illustrative example of microbiomes, because everyone has one and has experienced what it is like when that ecosystem is out of balance,” Rob Knight, PhD, member of the AGA Center for Gut Microbiome Research and Education scientific advisory board and professor of pediatrics and computer science at the University of California in San Diego, said in the press release. “The accessibility of the site — you don’t have to go to the rainforest to see thousands of species interacting, you just have to go to the bathroom — positions gastroenterology to make fundamental contributions, not just to human health but to ecosystem science.”
Since its inception in April 2013, the AGA Center for Gut Microbiome Research and Education has helped to expand literature on the gut microbiome with a special microbiome-focused issue of Gastroenterology, and has funded a number of microbiome-focused research grants for young scientists. It has also promoted education with microbiome-focused meetings, and is currently contributing to the development of the 2016 Gut Microbiota for Health World Summit agenda. Furthermore, the center has helped to advance understanding of the microbiome; in partnership with American Gut, it will collect and analyze 500 gut microbiota samples from AGA volunteers, the findings of which will be presented at DDW 2016. Similarly, in partnership with a number of other scientific groups, AGA is working toward developing a national registry on fecal microbiota transplantation.
Currently, the AGA is also “planning its second congressional briefing to address gut microbiome opportunities and needs, as well as the pertinent microbiome issues of antibiotic resistance and fecal transplants,” according to the press release.
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