Measuring the human microbiome; v1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Measuring the human microbiome
IRAS ID
161174
Contact name
Abigail Fraser
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Bristol
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 5 months, 30 days
Research summary
Interest in the microbial community that is part of the human body and its potential role in health and disease has exploded in recent years. However, there are few properly designed epidemiological studies into the causal relationships between variation in the composition of the human microbiome and components of human health. This is a keen area of interest for us at the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit at the University of Bristol and within the School of Social and Community Medicine. Much of our work focuses on the assertion of causality in epidemiological relationships and we are aiming to move these approaches across to the examination of the human microbiome. We have initiated these efforts in existing studies at Bristol (for example in the new generation of the Children of the 90s Study; www.bris.ac.uk/ALSPAC), however the required ground work needed to plan and undertake these studies has yet to be performed.
This investigation is designed exclusively to assess the feasibility of microbiome sample collection and to look into how stable measurements are and how reproducible results from out data collection approaches can be. We plan to profile the microbiota in saliva and stool samples produced by healthy volunteers on two different days. We will then compare results from two separate tests done using the same sample and results from the two different timepoints and sites to better understand whether results are stable or not. This has implications for the planning of studies examining the role of the microbiota in human health and disease. This type of work is critical to the continuation of research for us into this important area of human biology and whilst other centres have explore this locally, if we are to apply our expertise to similar data, we need to undertake the current, formative, study.
REC name
East of England - Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/EE/1300
Date of REC Opinion
13 Jan 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion