The Importance of Preserving the Diversity of the Human Microbiome

The Summer 2019 issue of MIT Spectrum reports on the travels of several MIT post-doctoral students who traveled to Malaysia in search of microbiome samples from indigenous villagers of the Batek tribe.  Collecting the samples proved to be challenging, as skeptical villages unaccustomed to toilets, not to mention observers, were unwilling to  put their personal habits on display.  Fortunately an accommodation preserved the villagers' privacy while allowing the researchers to locate stool samples.

Although it sounds at first like an odd undertaking, the fact is that the Batek tribe living in the forest more than 250 miles from the capital in Kuala Lumpur offered a unique microbiome.  As nomadic hunter-gatherers, the Batek tribe's microbiomes are the result of a diet free from processed food, and untouched by the vaccines, antibiotics, and chemicals that affect the microbiomes of those living in the industrialized areas of the globe.  

The successfully harvested samples were taken to MIT's Center for Microbiome Informatics and Therapeutics (CMIT) for further study.  Launched in 2014, CMIT seeks to research the human microbiome to understand better its role in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases like Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis.  


Source:  Halber, Deborah, "Going for the Gut," MIT Spectrum, Summer 2019 Issue, available at:  https://spectrum.mit.edu/summer-2019/going-for-the-gut/