Friday, July 22, 2011

Friday Science: Human Biom Project

Several years ago there was a scientific endeavor called the Human Genome project.  Thousands of researchers around the world took separate sections of the Human DNA strand and mapped it, dissected it and broke it apart into its pieces and published the information for the entire world to see.  Even though some major players in the science world were involved, it was sort of a open source project.  There were some researchers that were quality control and just checked every ones results.

They are starting a new project called the Human Biom Project.  This exhaustive search will detail the flora and fauna of the basic human body.  They will discover the type of bacteria and fungi that populate our bodies, inside and out.   They will sample the skin, hair, intestines to quantify and qualify the organisms living there.   The drug companies and the medical community are looking at this project as guiding the future direction of medicine.  The Genome project is starting to give up some secrets to how cancers work, why some have birth defects and how we can fix broken gene expressions.  The Biom project will enlighten us on diseases, treatments and aging.  The questions of why vitamins help some people and not others when treating cancer will be answered.  Some types of Diabetes will have a cure.  Digestive disorders will be diagnosed microbiologically and cured with diet modifications and microbial supplements. 

The list goes on and on with ailments that will be effected.  The skin is our main defense against disease and we know almost nothing about the organisms that patrol there.  I can not wait.  Really.

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