Gary D. Wu, M.D., University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia Digestive tract: Crohn's Disease $1.1 million (1 year) In children, Crohn's disease, a form of inflammatory bowel disease, is clinically treated through diet. This team will investigate whether these specialized diet regimes work by altering the composition of the intestinal microbiome. Partial funding for this project will be provided by NIH's Office of Dietary Supplements.
Vincent B. Young, M.D., Ph.D., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Digestive tract: Ulcerative Colitis $8.2 million (3 years)Some patients who suffer from ulcerative colitis, a type of inflammatory bowel disease that causes inflammation and sores in the lining of the rectum and colon, are treated with surgical removal of the colon, followed by construction of a pouch to assist the patient with bowel movements. For unknown reasons, some patients develop inflammation of the pouch, necessitating further surgery. This research will determine whether the composition of the pouch microbiome influences the onset and progression of pouch inflammation.
Historically, microbes have been studied in the laboratory as cultures of isolated species. Microbial growth is dependent upon a very specific natural environment, and it is often difficult to duplicate these conditions in a laboratory. Therefore, the development of novel and innovative technologies is needed to improve and refine the identification and characterization of the microbes that comprise the complex mixtures found in and on our bodies.
The principal investigators who will develop new technologies, their approximate funding levels and their areas of research are: Emma Allen-Vercoe, Ph.D., University of Guelph, Ontario $179,000 (2 years) A Method to Sort and Enrich the as-yet Uncultured Bacterial Species from the Human Distal Gut
Ronald Davis, Ph.D., Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif. $440,000 (2 years) Isolation, Selection and Polony Amplification of Single Cells in a Gel Matrix
David Fredricks, M.D., Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle. $2 million (3 years) Novel Cultivation Methods for the Domestication of Vaginal Bacteria
Rustem Ismagilov, Ph.D., University of Chicago $1.1 million (3 years) Confining Single Cells to Enhance and Target Cultivation of Human Microbiome
Kim Lewis, Ph.D., Northeastern University, Boston $1.2 million (3 years) Culturing Uncultivatable Gut Microorganisms
John Nelson, Ph.D., General Electric Global Research, Niskayuna, N.Y. $538,000 (2 years) Tools for Human Microbiome Studies
Analysis of the sequence data from the Human Microbiome Project also requires the development of new and novel computational approaches to study the associations of the microbiome with specific body sites and with specific diseases. Anticipated in fiscal year 2010, the Human Microbiome Project's computational tools program will award additional funds to produce bioinformatic tools for the research community to analyze microbiome diversity and to evaluate the human microbiome and disease progression.
Source: NIH/National Human Genome Research Institute