Human microbiome research: Growing pains and future promises

Abstract

Human microbiome research is evolving from describing associations to understanding the impact of bioactive strains on humans. Despite challenges, progress is being made to apply data-driven microbiome diagnostics and interventions, potentially leading to precision medicine breakthroughs in the next decade.

Fig 1. Challenges and emerging approaches in microbiome research.

In meeting the formidable challenges that have complicated top-down microbiome research in the past 2 decades, the maturing field is increasingly searching for means of enhancing standardization of microbiome data acquisition and analysis, and diversifying microbiome characterization through incorporation of a variety of genomic and nongenomic pipelines, while accounting for potential confounders, caveats, and interindividual variability. The maturing field is increasingly evolving from descriptive research that highlights associations, correlations, and predictions, into mechanistic exploration of causality and molecular insights. These, coupled with enhanced usage of “big data” analytics, enable the development of personalized diagnostics and precision microbiome interventions. These modalities are expected to be tested in humans and would hopefully integrate into clinics in the coming decade. All these top-down approaches are complementary and pursued in parallel to each other and to bottom-up microbiome research.