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Editorial

Toward a Predictive Understanding of Earth’s Microbiomes to Address 21st Century Challenges

Martin J. Blaser, Zoe G. Cardon, Mildred K. Cho, Jeffrey L. Dangl, Timothy J. Donohue, Jessica L. Green, Rob Knight, Mary E. Maxon, Trent R. Northen, Katherine S. Pollard, Eoin L. Brodie
Martin J. Blaser
aDepartments of Microbiology and Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA
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Zoe G. Cardon
bThe Ecosystems Center, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA
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Mildred K. Cho
cStanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA
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Jeffrey L. Dangl
dDepartment of Biology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
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Timothy J. Donohue
eDepartment of Bacteriology, Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center and Wisconsin Energy Institute, University of Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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  • ORCID record for Timothy J. Donohue
Jessica L. Green
fBiology and the Built Environment Center, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, USA
gDepartment of Biology, Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, USA
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Rob Knight
hDepartments of Pediatrics and Computer Science & Engineering, and Center for Microbiome Innovation, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA
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Mary E. Maxon
iBiosciences, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, USA
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Trent R. Northen
iBiosciences, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, USA
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Katherine S. Pollard
jDivision of Biostatistics, Gladstone Institutes and Institute for Human Genetics, Institute for Computational Health Science, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA
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Eoin L. Brodie
kEarth and Environmental Sciences, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, California, USA
lDepartment of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA
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DOI: 10.1128/mBio.00714-16
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ABSTRACT

Microorganisms have shaped our planet and its inhabitants for over 3.5 billion years. Humankind has had a profound influence on the biosphere, manifested as global climate and land use changes, and extensive urbanization in response to a growing population. The challenges we face to supply food, energy, and clean water while maintaining and improving the health of our population and ecosystems are significant. Given the extensive influence of microorganisms across our biosphere, we propose that a coordinated, cross-disciplinary effort is required to understand, predict, and harness microbiome function. From the parallelization of gene function testing to precision manipulation of genes, communities, and model ecosystems and development of novel analytical and simulation approaches, we outline strategies to move microbiome research into an era of causality. These efforts will improve prediction of ecosystem response and enable the development of new, responsible, microbiome-based solutions to significant challenges of our time.

The views expressed in this Editorial do not necessarily reflect the views of this journal or of ASM.

  • Copyright © 2016 Blaser et al.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

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Toward a Predictive Understanding of Earth’s Microbiomes to Address 21st Century Challenges
Martin J. Blaser, Zoe G. Cardon, Mildred K. Cho, Jeffrey L. Dangl, Timothy J. Donohue, Jessica L. Green, Rob Knight, Mary E. Maxon, Trent R. Northen, Katherine S. Pollard, Eoin L. Brodie
mBio May 2016, 7 (3) e00714-16; DOI: 10.1128/mBio.00714-16

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Toward a Predictive Understanding of Earth’s Microbiomes to Address 21st Century Challenges
Martin J. Blaser, Zoe G. Cardon, Mildred K. Cho, Jeffrey L. Dangl, Timothy J. Donohue, Jessica L. Green, Rob Knight, Mary E. Maxon, Trent R. Northen, Katherine S. Pollard, Eoin L. Brodie
mBio May 2016, 7 (3) e00714-16; DOI: 10.1128/mBio.00714-16
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  • Top
  • Article
    • ABSTRACT
    • EDITORIAL
    • MICROBES DROVE THE FORMATION OF OUR BIOSPHERE
    • GLOBAL CHALLENGES OF HUMAN POPULATION GROWTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE
    • THE ROLE OF MICROBIOME RESEARCH TO IMPROVE HUMAN HEALTH AND RESILIENCE
    • URBANIZATION AND THE INTERSECTION OF THE HUMAN AND ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOMES
    • THE SOCIETAL BENEFITS OF HARNESSED MICROBIOME FUNCTIONS
    • CROSS-CUTTING CHALLENGES TO MICROBIOME-BASED INNOVATION: TECHNOLOGICAL ROADBLOCKS
    • DECODING FUNCTIONS OF MICROBIAL GENOMES
    • PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF MICROBIAL HABITATS
    • TECHNOLOGIES FOR ROBUST, PORTABLE, GENOME-CENTRIC ANALYSES OF MICROBIOMES
    • BUILDING THE FRAMEWORK FOR MASSIVELY PARALLEL GENOME-CENTRIC QUANTITATIVE MICROBIOME ANALYSIS
    • DEVELOPING AND INTEGRATING TOOLS FOR ROBUST HYPOTHESIS TESTING
    • THE POTENTIAL FOR TRANSFORMATIONAL DISCOVERIES UNDER A UMI
    • POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF A UMI TO GROWING BIOECONOMIES
    • GLOBAL ETHICAL, LEGAL, AND SOCIAL ISSUES ASSOCIATED WITH A UMI AND THE POTENTIAL FOR INNOVATION
    • CONCLUDING POINTS
    • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    • REFERENCES
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