Being Commensal: Human-Microbe Relations at the Edge of Biological Science

从出生的那一刻起，直到人死后很久，人体中存在着数以万亿计的微生物。人体内的微生物细胞数量与人体细胞数量之比达到惊人的十倍，然而人们对这些共生细菌如何影响人类的发育、健康、疾病、营养或基因表达知之甚少。该项目将严格评估华盛顿大学基因组科学中心（CGS）正在进行的关于人类肠道微生物的科学工作，那里的科学家已经开始认为微生物对人类至关重要，微生物基因组是“第二”人类基因组的组成部分。本研究有三个目标：第一，评估系统生物学和宏基因组学在实验室中发展的策略；第二，跟踪科学知识在日常生活中的实施；第三，探索这项工作对人类和微生物生命的影响。研究将包括12个月的实地工作，包括：档案研究、访谈和参与者观察，在CGS实验室和与该科学项目相关的国际实地研究地点进行。这个项目带来了关于新的亲属关系、遗传学、社会性和社会实践的人类学问题，以承担关于营养、食物和人类健康的生物学思考的边缘问题。理解共生，即人类和微生物之间的生物社会性，将人类学、科学技术研究和系统生物学联系起来。它还使自然科学和社会科学之间的合作研究成为可能。通过在新的社会生态学背景下研究人类有机体的新概念，本研究将帮助社会科学家、卫生组织和更广泛的公众更好地理解宏基因组学和人类微生物群在公共卫生问题上的科学和实践意义。

Microbes populate human bodies by the hundreds of trillions, from the moment of birth until long after death. Microbial cells in human bodies outnumber human cells at a staggering ten to one, yet little is known about how these commensal bacteria factor into human development, health, illness, nutrition, or gene expression. This project will critically assess scientific work being done on human gut microbes at the Center for Genome Sciences (CGS) at Washington University, where scientists have begun to consider microbes essential to being human, and microbial genomes as constitutive of the "second" human genome. This research has three aims: first, to evaluate strategies in systems biology and metagenomics as they develop in the lab, second, to follow the implementation of scientific knowledge in everyday life, and third, to explore the effects of this work on human and microbial lives. Research will consist of twelve months of fieldwork including: archival study, interviews, and participant observation, both in the CGS laboratory and the international field study sites connected with this scientific project.This project brings anthropological questions about new kinships, genetics, sociality, and social practices to bear on questions unfolding at the edges of biological thinking about nutrition, food, and human health. Understanding commensalism, the biological sociality between humans and microbes, connects the concerns of anthropology, science and technology studies, and systems biology. It also enables collaborative research across the natural and social sciences. By investigating new conceptions of the human organism in the context of new social ecologies, this research will help social scientists, health organizations, and the broader public better understand the scientific and practical implications of metagenomics and human microbiota on public health issues.