title: Where next for microbiome research?
abstract: The development of high-throughput sequencing technologies has transformed our capacity to investigate the composition and dynamics of the microbial communities that populate diverse habitats. Over the past decade, these advances have yielded an avalanche of metagenomic data. The current stage of "van Leeuwenhoek"-like cataloguing, as well as functional analyses, will likely accelerate as DNA and RNA sequencing, plus protein and metabolic profiling capacities and computational tools, continue to improve. However, it is time to consider: what's next for microbiome research? The short pieces included here briefly consider the challenges and opportunities awaiting microbiome research.
authors.affiliation: Division of Infectious Diseases, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology Harvard Medical School and HHMI, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Matthew K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Waldor
authors.affiliation: Australian Centre for Ecogenomics and Advanced Water Management Centre, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: Gene
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Tyson
authors.affiliation: Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America; Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America; Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States of America.
authors.forename: Elhanan
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Borenstein
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, United States of America.
authors.forename: Howard
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ochman
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Moeller
authors.affiliation: Michael Smith Laboratories, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
authors.forename: B Brett
authors.initials: BB
authors.lastname: Finlay
authors.affiliation: Dermatology Branch, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Heidi H
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Kong
authors.affiliation: Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jeffrey I
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: Gordon
authors.affiliation: J. Craig Venter Institute, Rockville, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Karen E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Nelson
authors.affiliation: Second Genome, Inc., South San Francisco, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Karim
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Dabbagh
authors.affiliation: J. Craig Venter Institute, La Jolla, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Hamilton
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Smith
mesh_terms: D005075:Biological Evolution; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000639:trends*; D041981:Gastrointestinal Tract / Q000382:microbiology; D006801:Humans; D064307:Microbiota; D012867:Skin / Q000382:microbiology; D058615:Synthetic Biology; D049490:Systems Biology