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

从出生的那一刻到死后很长一段时间，人体内的微生物数量都以数百万亿计。人体中的微生物细胞数量是人类细胞的十倍，但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。该项目将对华盛顿大学基因组科学中心(CGS)对人类肠道微生物所做的科学工作进行批判性评估，在该中心，科学家们已开始考虑对人类至关重要的微生物，并将微生物基因组视为“第二”人类基因组的组成部分。这项研究有三个目的：第一，评估系统生物学和元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情况，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田野研究地点。该项目带来了关于新亲属关系、遗传学、社会性和社会实践的人类学问题，以应对正在展开的关于营养、食物和人类健康的生物学思考的问题。理解共生性，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在一起。它还使跨自然科学和社会科学的合作研究成为可能。通过在新的社会生态背景下研究人类有机体的新概念，这项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元基因组学和人类微生物区系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.