The Human Microbiome Project: A Community Resource for the Healthy Human Microbiome
Figure 2
HMP consortium activities as a model for microbiome data generation and analyses.
(A) Initiatives within the HMP coordinated to isolate samples, generate data, perform analysis, and publish results. Technology development was employed to develop novel bacterial culture and DNA isolation techniques. Ethical Legal and Social Implications (ELSI) work anticipated societal implications and guided policies associated with human subject microbiomes. Clinical sites were collected samples from large cohorts of healthy individuals, with nucleotide sequence information derived at four sequencing centers at the Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), the Broad Institute, the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), and the Washington University Genome Institute (WUGI). Additional demonstration projects assessed primarily microbiome alterations related to disease. In addition to analysis throughout the HMP consortium, computational tools were funded to address, for example, genome assembly, microbial ecology, and statistical modeling. A data analysis and coordination center provided a portal to all data generated. (B) Overview of the analysis approaches that were the ultimate product of the HMP consortium, corresponding to data products and protocols available at http://hmpdacc.org.