Big Question: Identity and function of the microbiome across environments: A collaboratoria of the Microbiome Center

Principal Investigator: Jack Gilbert, Surgery, Microbiome Center

Funding Type: Workshop

Focus Area: Complexity

Big Idea: Communities of microbes - bacteria, viruses, and fungi - are impacting every ecosystem on earth including human bodies, oceans, our homes, and land around us. Because of advances in fundamental and applied science, biotechnology, and computational ability in the last 10 years, we know more about which organisms are living in community – the microbiome - and how those communities interact and develop over time. The Microbiome Center is a new joint center at UChicago, MBL, and Argonne that has emerged to support the diverse community of faculty and scientists who are advancing knowledge about the identity and function of communities of microbes across environments. The Collaboratoria will bring together investigators across disciplines, divisions, and three institutions, in order to find common questions, establish new research partnerships, envision new platform technologies across systems, and share intellectual and technological capabilities for novel purposes.