Maria Y. Giovanni

TL;DR: The Human Microbiome Project Consortium reported the first results of their analysis of microbial communities from distinct, clinically relevant body habitats in a human cohort; the insights into the microbial communities of a healthy population lay foundations for future exploration of the epidemiology, ecology and translational applications of the human microbiome as discussed by the authors.

TL;DR: The Human Microbiome Project has analysed the largest cohort and set of distinct, clinically relevant body habitats so far, finding the diversity and abundance of each habitat’s signature microbes to vary widely even among healthy subjects, with strong niche specialization both within and among individuals.

TL;DR: The Human Microbiome Project (HMP) Consortium has established a population-scale framework which catalyzed significant development of metagenomic protocols resulting in a broad range of quality-controlled resources and data including standardized methods for creating, processing and interpreting distinct types of high-throughput metagenomics data available to the scientific community as mentioned in this paper.

TL;DR: The ultimate objective of the HMP is to demonstrate that there are opportunities to improve human health through monitoring or manipulation of the human microbiome.

TL;DR: This paper focuses on the technologies required to meet the global health diagnostics needs presented in the previous papers, highlighting how new diagnostic technologies might have the potential to change medical and public-health scenarios in the developing world.