Knight says, because right now so little is known. "You have to see that as an exciting challenge rather than a discouraging limitation."
Funding and Training
- In addition to the trans-NIH Human Microbiome Project, several NIH institutes -- including the National Human Genome Research Institute, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research -- fund research on the human microbiome through their regular programs, mostly through unsolicited proposals. Program directors expect funding opportunities in the area will continue to grow.
- NSF doesn't have a metagenomics program specifically, "but that's because metagenomics is everywhere," says Kane, noting that NSF funds metagenomics research through all four divisions of its Directorate for Biological Sciences as well as through programs in its Engineering and Geosciences directorates and its Office of Polar Programs.
- The Department of Energy (DOE) Genomic Science Program supports metagenomic research through three Bioenergy Research Centers (whose overall focus is to spur basic research in the development of biofuels), as well as through individual research grants. (In addition to its grant programs, DOE's Joint Genome Institute, based in Walnut Creek, California, conducts metagenomic sequencing and analysis, as well as other microbiological work that is foundational to being able to perform metagenomic analyses.)
- A number of private foundations, such as the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, also support metagenomic research in a variety of areas, including marine ecosystems and the development of Crohn's disease.
Several institutions offer short courses that teach metagenomic techniques, often as part of a broader course of study:
- The University of Hawaii at Manoa's Center for Microbial Oceanography Summer Course
- The University of Maryland Institute for Genome Science's Genomics Workshop
- The Joint Genome Institute's Microbial Genomics and Metagenomics Workshop
- J. Craig Venter Institute's Prokaryotic Genome Annotation and Analysis Course
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's Computational and Comparative Genomics Course
- Hopkins Marine Station's (Stanford University) Marine Microbiology Course
- International Graduate Training Course in Antarctic Marine Biology (McMurdo Station, Antarctica)
Siri Carpenter writes from Madison, Wisconsin.