Human Condition
The human body represents an ecosystem of trillions of microorganisms that must coexist to balance health and wellness. Organism within the human genome must live together to create a symbiotic relationship. The state of a person’s microbiome helps to define the ability of human metabolism to fend off disease to maintain a healthy state of being. The complexity and diversity of the microbiome is vast. Opportunity to identify and track disease progression can benefit by learning more about how microbiota are effected by bacteria, archaea, fungi, algae, and protists that can extend to viruses, phages, and mobile genetic elements. Ability to identify, track and monitor change to microorganisms must extend to the molecular level to understand how the structural elements of molecules vary throughout the body.
Microorganisms inside and outside the body are affected by temperature, pH, oxygen concentration, pressure, osmolarity, and nutrient sources that affect diversity and abundance. Intrinsic and extrinsic factors that affect human microbiota depend on how they grow based on a person’s genetics, ethnicity, gender, age and a host of other conditions such as diet, lifestyle, medication, geographic location, climate, and seasonality that can alter microbial conditions. A human’s immune system and metabolic processes and rates can vary substantially based on states and conditions. When the natural environment within the body is altered, the composition and diversity of the microbiome can shift to facilitate the onset of disease.
Search for insights about microbes in the natural world spans millennia. Ancient wisdom passed down through generations can be extremely useful, but environments that affects how metabolism, immune systems, and human behaviors change must be considered. Intricate relationships between microbial communities and human beings vary considerably by what people eat and where and how they live. A condition in one place can vary significantly from one person to another. To expand our understanding of metabolic conditions to learn more about disease development is crucial to engineering new epigenetics and therapeutics to advance healthcare practices.
Ability to modulate functions of the microbiome can lead to the alteration of microbial composition and functions. Alteration of specific microbes, microorganisms, prebiotics, or bioactive metabolites represents opportunity to create game changing developments to improve human healthcare outcomes. Engineered probiotics and ability to synthesize microbes can lead to new ways to combat and treat disease.