INSPIRE Track 1: What is Normal Milk? Sociocultural, Evolutionary, Environmental, and Microbial Aspects of Human Milk Composition

该INSPIRE奖部分由以下项目资助：（a）共生，防御&自我认可计划（生物学理事会综合有机系统司）（B）新兴前沿办公室（生物学理事会）（c）信息集成和信息学以及信息和智能系统司（计算机信息科学工程理事会）的特殊项目计划&&（d）非洲/中东/南亚集群（肯尼亚、加纳）和美洲（拉丁美洲、SDC）国际科学和工程办公室组群。众所周知，母乳喂养可以保护婴儿免受疾病，特别是在世界上最贫穷的地区。然而，这种保护作用的全部性质还不太清楚。理解的一个主要障碍是，几乎不知道影响地球仪周围牛奶成分显著变化的因素，或者这种变化对婴儿健康的影响。INSPIRE项目代表了对母乳成分全球差异的首次全面调查，沿着的还有可能影响母乳成分和婴儿健康的各种微生物、进化、环境和社会文化因素。生理学家、营养科学家、人类学家、微生物学家和数学家的国际跨学科合作将收集发达国家（美国、西班牙、瑞典）和发展中国家（中非共和国、冈比亚、加纳、秘鲁和肯尼亚）母乳喂养妇女及其婴儿的生物学数据，以及广泛的人类学和生态学数据。为了测试乳低聚糖组成、乳微生物群和婴儿胃肠道微生物组之间相关性的可能性，将使用最先进的生物化学和基因组技术分析乳样品和婴儿粪便样品。 这项研究将允许重要的牛奶成分和婴儿喂养方法的跨文化比较，它也将利用先进的计算方法来整合广泛的，多样的身体相结合的生物学和人类学数据，以阐明社会文化因素之间的关系，进化历史，环境暴露，微生物成分和牛奶成分。研究人员预测，在一个人群中被认为是“正常”的牛奶成分可能不支持另一个人群的最佳健康。这些信息对于了解如何在世界各地改善婴儿营养和整体健康的人道主义探索至关重要。此外，该项目将为本科生、研究生和博士后科学家提供广泛的研究培训机会。

This INSPIRE award is partially funded by the following programs (a) the Symbiosis, Defense & Self-Recognition Program (Division of Integrative Organismal Systems, Biology Directorate) (b) the Emerging Frontiers Office ( Biology Directorate) (c) the Information Integration and Informatics and Special Projects programs of the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems (Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering) (d) The Africa/Middle East/South Asia cluster (Kenya, Ghana) and Americas (Latin America, SDC) Cluster of the Office of International Science and Engineering. It is well-known that breastfeeding protects infants from illness, especially in the poorest regions of the world. The full nature of this protective effect, however, is less well understood. A major barrier to understanding is the fact that almost nothing is known about the factors that influence the considerable variation in milk composition around the globe, or about the effects of this variation on infant health. This INSPIRE project represents the first comprehensive investigation of the global differences in human milk composition along with the various microbial, evolutionary, environmental, and sociocultural factors that might influence both milk composition and infant health. An international, interdisciplinary collaboration of physiologists, nutritional scientists, anthropologists, microbiologists, and mathematicians will collect biological data from breastfeeding women and their infants, in concert with extensive anthropologic and ecological data, in both developed (US, Spain, Sweden) and developing countries (Central African Republic, Gambia, Ghana, Peru, and Kenya). To test the possibility of a correlation between milk oligosaccharide composition, milk microbiota, and the gastrointestinal microbiome of infants, milk samples and infant fecal samples will be analyzed using state-of-the-art biochemical and genomic techniques. This study will allow important cross-cultural comparisons of milk composition and infant feeding practices; it also will utilize sophisticated computational methods to integrate the extensive, diverse body of combined biological and anthropological data to elucidate the relationships among sociocultural factors, evolutionary history, environmental exposures, microbial constituents and milk composition. The researchers predict that what is considered "normal" milk composition in one population may not support optimal health in another. This information is crucial to the humanitarian quest to understand how infant nutrition and overall health can be improved around the world. In addition, this project will provide extensive research training opportunities for undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral scientists.