Monday, December 17, 2012

American Gut Project

An open-source, community driven effort to characterize the microbial diversity of the American public. Does diet matter? - American Gut Project




You are more microbes than you are mammal.  Everybody on Earth has two genomes.  You have the one you got form your Mom and Dad which you inherited.  Then you have your second genome which is all the genetic material that is packaged up in your gut and in your skin, all those microbes, and that is the genome you acquire.  It's interesting that there are only 23,000 genes in your genome but over three million genes in your gut microbiome.  So, in other words, those genes encode more instructions than your own genome.  It begs the question, "Who is in charge?"  We know that the microbiome may influence things like auto-immune disease, certain cancers, inflammatory bowel disease, colitis and rheumatoid arthritis.  So it appears that a lot of disease may be related to a shift in your gut composition.

Let’s say you want to donate. This is not a commercial lab, this is not a fee for services. It is a straight up citizen science project we’re asking you to donate to. You donate $99 for the project between now and January 7, you’re signed up, and you’ll receive a kit at your home. The kit basically amounts to an eight inch long double-headed swab, just like something that you swab your ear with.  It comes in a tube. What you’re going to do is, you’re going to wipe that across the toilet paper and you’re going to stick it back in the tube, and you’re going to mail it to us.  We’re going to process the sample. It’s going to go through DNA sequencing. All the samples go to the University of Colorado at Boulder, to Rob Knight’s lab. All that data will be processed there. It will be given a number. When you receive your kit at home,  you'll also get a questionnaire. You’ll also have a special ID number that nobody knows except you.


- Interview with Jeff Leach founder of American Gut Project.



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