There's 10 trillion microbes on you; the White House wants to figure them out

The White House will announce a new initiative Friday to kick start research into the microbes that shape life on Earth — including those in plants, animals, water, soil and air — as part of an effort to fight disease, grow more food and even reduce the greenhouse gases fueling climate change.

With $121 million in federal dollars and $400 million in private funds, the National Microbiome Initiative will bring together researchers from a variety of disciplines. Government researchers will be joined by organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the University of Michigan and JDRF, formerly known as the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Although most people associate bacteria with disease and decay, the vast majority of microbes actually play a beneficial or at least neutral role in human life, said Jo Handelsman, the associate director for science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Billions of years ago, she notes, it was ocean-dwelling bacteria that began releasing oxygen into the atmosphere, making life on land possible.

"We wouldn't be here without these bacteria," Handelsman said. "Our health, our behavior and even our longevity are all affected by these bacteria."

The White House's sponsorship of microbial science will raise awareness of the field and could inspire private companies to invest in the research, said Craig Venter, a biologist and entrepreneur best known for co-leading efforts to sequence the human genome. The president's endorsement  is probably more important than the federal dollars involved, he said. "The White House is a bully pulpit," Venter said.

The best-known microbial science research involves the bacteria living in and on the human body.

Humans are home to 10 trillion bacteria, yeast and fungi that perform a number of vital tasks, such as digesting food, synthesizing vitamins and fighting infections. Humans rely on the benign bacteria in our guts to make vitamin K, for example, a nutrient that helps blood to clot. "Without these bacteria, we would bleed to death very quickly," Handelsman said.

But modern life may be throwing our ancient bacteria off balance.

Changes in the human microbiome, as the collection of the body's microbes is called, could explain recent increases in chronic diseases, such as asthma, allergies, obesity, diabetes and autism, said Martin Blaser, a professor of microbiology and director of New York University Langone Medical Center's Human Microbiome Program.

Although our genes haven't changed in recent decades, humans have altered our microbiomes through changes to our diets and the widespread use of antibiotics, which kill off both good and bad bacteria, Blaser said.

Our microbes are under threat - and the enemy is us

Research into the human microbiome has already produced experimental treatments for a life-threatening infection called C. difficile, which can develop when the normal balance of bacteria is thrown out of balance by heavy antibiotic use. Doctors have begun treating these infections with fecal transplants, in which they transfer stool samples from healthy people into the colons of people suffering from C. difficile.

Researchers caution that fecal transplants are still considered experimental and that the procedures have been performed at a small number of hospitals Still, early evidence suggests that the transplants can help restore a healthy balance of bacteria and relieve the infections. Eventually, scientists hope to isolate the most important bacteria for combating these infections and provide these treatments in pill form, rather than a stool transplant, Blaser said.

Yet scientists have much to learn.

Researchers have identified only about 1% of the bacteria that inhabit the soil and oceans, said Stefano Bertuzzi, executive director and CEO of the American Society for Microbiology.

"It's amazing how little we know," Bertuzzi said. "When you look at the most daunting problems that society is confronted with, microbes are part of the problem and part of the solution."

Mapping these microbes is the first step to manipulating them in ways that might help humans address some of the most pressing issues of our time, Blaser said.

For examples, farmers might be able to grow food in soil that's not normally fertile enough for certain crops, Blaser said. Because some types of bacteria take greenhouse gases out of the air, scientists hold out hope that they could even help to reduce climate change, Blaser said.

If drug developers better understood how the bacteria in our guts metabolize medications, they could try to develop medicines that are more effective, with fewer side effects, Blaser said. Pharmaceutical researchers are already working in this area, and could produce drugs based on microbiome research within the next five years or so.

Some predict that knowledge of the human microbiome could help solve crimes.

Scientists are studying the microbial trails that people leave behind them, Handelsman said. Forensic scientists might be able to use these trails to track people's paths, much as detectives now solve crimes using finger prints and DNA.

"We all have a unique cloud of microbiomes around us and we leave it behind when we leave a room," Handelsman said. "There is work going on now to find out how much we influence the microbiome when we enter a room. One of my colleagues can tell which of his kids has been in a room, because their microbiomes are so different."