Studying the hotbed of horizontal gene transfers
For over 200,000 years, humans and their gut microbiomes have coevolved into some of the most complex collections of living organisms on the planet. But as human lifestyles vary from the urban to rural, so do the bacterial diversities of gut microbiomes. That's why a nonprofit global collaboration of more than 70 scientists has been working for the past two years to interrogate and preserve that diversity of gut microbiomes from populations around the world, racing against the proliferation of antibiotic overuse and Western-style diets, which are known to contribute to a decrease in gut bacterial diversity. The Global Microbiome Conservancy, launched in 2016, already has some surprising insights that further shed light on the black box of gut bacterial diversity and human digestion. The MIT-based scientists who founded the conservancy come from a disparate set of disciplines: biological engineering, evolutionary biology, organic geochemistry, and biomedical research. Such collaborations may allow for interdisciplinary innovation...