Researchers from the Institute for Implementation Science in Population Health (CUNY ISPH) at CUNY SPH have successfully renewed an NIH R01 grant for $2.5 million, funding research into the relationship between cancer and the microbiome for the next five years.
The project, “Exploiting Public Metagenomic Data to Uncover Cancer-Microbiome Relationships,” is led by ISPH Investigators Levi Waldron and Sehyun Oh. The project includes subawards to Harvard University, the University of Colorado, and the University of Trento in Italy.
The project leverages public metagenomic data to uncover relationships between cancer and the microbiome. Alterations of the host microbiome are established in several important cancer types and are a factor in the systemic response to immunotherapy. Despite the availability of extensive literature and data resources on microbiome research, systemic comparison and analysis remain limited due to heterogeneity in data and reporting.
To address these challenges, the project has developed high-quality harmonized public microbiome data and microbial signatures databases.
The grant renewal expands and creates new features of these databases to keep up with rapidly developing technologies and growing volumes of data. This project increases the likelihood of developing effective public health interventions to prevent and detect microbiota-linked cancers by providing methods for improved mechanistic interpretation of microbiome studies, extracting new information from published raw metagenomic shotgun sequencing data and metadata, and enabling the re-use of existing data by a broader range of researchers and methodologies.
“I think of this as the ‘publicly-owned microbiome project’ and truly believe in its potential to make public data and literature more valuable for preventing and curing disease,” says Waldron. “Enthusiastic members of the public can even become part of the active contributing community we have developed through the bugsigdb.org Wiki.”
Reposted with permission from CUNY SPH.
