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  • SPOTLIGHT

Mapping the Chinese microbiome: it’s time for a united effort

Much has been done to investigate the human microbiome. Now, it’s time for countries to dig deeper.
By
  1. Ju-Sheng Zheng

    1. Ju-Sheng Zheng is co-director of the Westlake Intelligent Biomarker Discovery Lab at Westlake University in Hangzhou, China.

The landmark US National Institutes of Health-funded Human Microbiome Project (HMP), and its follow-up, the Integrative Human Microbiome Project (iHMP), increased our understanding of how the microbiome affected human health. These projects to map the human microbiome have proved hugely valuable, helping to lay the foundation for further investigation and discovery of core microbial biomarkers. This work has already contributed to disease prevention and prediction, and to precision treatment — and is likely to become even more prominent in future therapies.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-01843-y

This article is part of Nature Spotlight: Nutrition research in China, an editorially independent supplement. Advertisers have no influence over the content.

References

  1. Gou, W. et al. Med. Microecol. 14, 100064 (2022).

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  2. The Integrative HMP (iHMP) Research Network Consortium. Nature 569, 641–648 (2019).

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  3. Chen, L. et al. Nature Med. 28, 2333–2343 (2022).

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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