Networking Microbiome Research: A Symposium for a Microbiome Center Consortium

微生物栖息在地球的所有环境中，从人体到海洋和土壤。它们由细菌、古生菌、病毒和单细胞真核生物组成。微生物组存在于地球仪的每一个已知的生态系统中，包括许多植物和动物，它们也是微生物组的宿主。微生物组研究是美国多个机构的深度兴趣和快速发现的领域。因此，在大学、研究机构和国家实验室建立了微生物组中心，以支持当地的研究和教育。微生物组研究本质上是跨学科的，跨越生态系统和物种，从微观实体到人类健康再到全球循环。它还包括多种学科，包括计算机科学，化学，有机生物学，分子生物学等，使通信和合成具有挑战性。为了更好地连接微生物组研究人员和微生物组中心，提出了一个中心联盟。该奖项将于2020年6月16日至17日在芝加哥大学举办一次会议，开始在全国范围内建立微生物组中心网络，利用该网络促进微生物组研究及其在教育和推广中的应用。为了实现全国微生物组中心联网的目标，会议将重点讨论微生物组中心联盟的定义，讨论联盟的目标，并制定一项计划，以维持联盟的未来。会议记录将重点关注的关键领域包括：（1）通过解决微生物组研究需要新方法的地方，以及现有方法需要标准化和解释的地方，为研究人员做好准备。(2)讨论微生物组研究人员面临的生物信息学挑战，以加速微生物组研究的发现和应用。微生物组相关数据为研究人员带来了独特的分析挑战，无论是从DNA序列数据到空间图像的数据数量还是不同类型的数据。(3)通过与生物学中已经存在的成功的网络化组织进行会话，制定网络化微生物组中心的策略。最后，会议将寻求通过本科生和研究生实习来吸引下一代领导，作为会议的一部分，以及直接邀请现有微生物组中心的初级教师领导。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

Microbes inhabit all of Earth’s environments from the human body to oceans and soils. They are comprised of bacteria, archaea, viruses, and single-celled eukaryotes. Microbiomes reside in every known ecosystem around the globe, including many plants and animals that also host microbiomes. Microbiome research is an area of deep interest and rapid discovery across multiple institutions in the USA. As a result, microbiome centers have been established at universities, research institutes, and national labs supporting local research and education. Microbiome research is interdisciplinary in nature, cutting across ecosystems and species and scaling from microscopic entities to human health to global cycles. It also encompasses a diversity of disciplines including computer science, chemistry, organismal biology, molecular biology and more, making communication and synthesis challenging. In order to better connect both microbiome researchers and microbiome centers, a consortium of centers is proposed. This award will be used to host a conference at the University of Chicago on 16-17 Jun 2020 to begin to network microbiome centers nationally, leveraging the network for increased progress in microbiome research and its application to education and outreach. To achieve the goal of networking microbiome centers nationally, the conference will focus on defining a microbiome center consortium, discussing the objectives of the consortium, and developing a plan to sustain a consortium into the future. Key areas where conference proceedings will focus include: (1) Prepare researchers for the field’s rapid methodological advances by addressing where microbiome research needs new methodologies, and where existing methods require standardization and interpretation. (2) Discuss the bioinformatic challenges facing microbiome researchers to accelerate discovery and application in microbiome research. Microbiome-related data presents investigators with unique analysis challenges, both in terms of the quantity and the disparate types of data from DNA sequence data to spatial images. (3) Develop strategies for networking microbiome centers through a session with successful networked organizations that already exist in biology. Finally, the conference will seek to engage the next generation of leadership through both an undergraduate and a graduate student internship as part of the conference, as well as direct invitations to junior faculty leadership at existing microbiome centers.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.