A pupil processes microbiome samples within the UC San Diego Faculty of Medication lab of Rob Knight, PhD.
Picture credit score: Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego
The Nationwide Institutes of Well being (NIH)’s All of Us Analysis Program is a nationwide effort to construct a big, numerous database of 1 million or extra individuals whom researchers can use to check well being and illness.
The NIH is now awarding $170 million in grant funding to facilities throughout the nation to create a brand new consortium referred to as Diet for Precision Well being, powered by the All of Us Analysis Program®. The consortium will recruit a various pool of 10,000 All of Us Analysis Program individuals to develop algorithms to foretell particular person responses to meals and inform extra customized diet suggestions.
The Diet for Precision Well being consortium contains $14.55 million to launch a brand new Microbiome and Metagenomics Heart at UC San Diego. The middle will analyze the microbiomes — communities of microbes and their genetic materials — discovered within the stool samples of diet research individuals.
A present problem in precision diet is the shortcoming to mix the various components that have an effect on how people reply to eating regimen into a customized diet routine. These potential components embody the microbiome, metabolism, dietary standing, genetics and the setting. The best way these components work together to have an effect on well being remains to be poorly understood.
The Microbiome and Metagenomics Heart at UC San Diego will assist tackle a few of these gaps.
“Our new middle will deploy greater than a decade of analysis and improvement for the NIH’s most fun exploration but, combining our understanding of the microbiome and human genetics with our groundbreaking technical and informatics advances to quickly discover next-generation illness remedies primarily based on precision diet,” mentioned Microbiome and Metagenomics Heart co-leader Jack Gilbert, PhD, professor at UC San Diego Faculty of Medication and Scripps Establishment of Oceanography.
The Microbiome and Metagenomics Heart will probably be led by Gilbert and Rob Knight, PhD, together with co-investigators Andrew Bartko, PhD; Rebecca Fielding-Miller, PhD, MSPH; Kathleen Fisch, PhD; Maryam Gholami, PhD; David Gonzalez, PhD; Kristen Jepsen, PhD; Daniel McDonald, PhD; Camille Nebeker, EdD, MS; Pavel Pevzner, PhD; and Karsten Zengler, PhD, all at UC San Diego. The staff may even collaborate carefully with researchers at Duke College.
“The middle will construct on what now we have discovered in different large-scale actions, together with the Human Microbiome Challenge, the Earth Microbiome Challenge and the American Intestine Challenge. It leverages lots of the school and strengths introduced collectively within the Heart for Microbiome Innovation, in addition to the cross-disciplinary microbiome group now we have constructed right here at UC San Diego,” mentioned Knight, professor and director of the Heart for Microbiome Innovation at UC San Diego Faculty of Medication and Jacobs Faculty of Engineering.
“Bringing this experience and expertise to bear on the extremely difficult drawback of diet and well being will allow an entire new degree of precision in answering the age-old query of ‘what ought to I eat in the present day’?’ We’re simply beginning to perceive how the microbiome can reply this with a shocking degree of particular person element, not simply broad-strokes generalizations for the entire inhabitants.”
Diet for Precision Well being will gather new microbiome and metagenomics information, together with different probably predictive components, and mix it with present information within the All of Us database to develop a extra full image of how people reply to completely different meals or dietary routines. The info will probably be built-in into the All of Us Researcher Workbench and made broadly obtainable, offering better alternatives for researchers to make discoveries that might enhance well being and stop or deal with ailments and situations affected by diet.
“We all know that diet, identical to medication, isn’t one-size-fits-all,” mentioned Holly Nicastro, PhD, MPH, a coordinator of Diet for Precision Well being at NIH. “Diet for Precision Well being will bear in mind a person’s genetics, intestine microbes and different way of life, organic, environmental or social components to assist every particular person develop consuming suggestions that enhance general well being.”
All of Us opened for enrollment in 2018 and UC San Diego Well being co-leads the program’s implementation in California, the place greater than 37,000 individuals have already signed as much as take part. To be taught extra concerning the All of Us Analysis Program and methods to be a part of, please go to JoinAllofUs.org.
The Microbiome and Metagenomics Heart at UC San Diego is supported by the NIH Widespread Fund’s Diet for Precision Well being, powered by the All of Us Analysis Program grant 1 U24 DK131617-01. Diet for Precision Well being, powered by All of Us Analysis Program, and All of Us are service marks of the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Companies (HHS).
