Some of the things you think are influenced by your own genes are actually controlled by microbial DNA .”
— PROFESSOR ROB KNIGHT
mAPPing THE miCROBiOmE
In the name of science , two healthy adults stopped using soaps , creams and other personal hygiene products for three days . They then swabbed their skin from head to toe , and Pieter Dorrestein and colleagues in the UC San Diego Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences analyzed what came off . The team learned what types of bacteria live where , and what human molecules and other chemicals were found in the same places . The resulting 3-D maps will help determine how beauty products and other factors affect our microbial skin populations , and therefore our health .
This could be you ! ( Or at least your microbes .)
gET TO KnOW yOuR guT
If all this gut talk has you wondering what ’ s at work inside your own intestines , you ’ re in luck . Here ’ s your chance to be a part of the largest crowdsourced , crowdfunded science initiative , the American gut Project . With a goal to sequence as many human microbiomes as he could , Knight co-founded the program to collect microbial samples from as diverse a human population as possible . A nominal fee gets you the collection kit , which you use to send personal samples to Knight ’ s lab and afterward gain access to not only your own microbiome data , but everyone else ’ s microbes , too ( anonymous , of course ).
Find out how your microbes measure up and be a part of the study at americangut . org
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