- ・To understand diseases, we need to clearly define the differences between normal (healthy) and disease states.
- ・To use microbiota in industries such as drug discovery, it is important to elucidate the causes of a target disease and to stratify patients with the disease.
- ・Conventionally, studies on diseases other than infectious diseases have been conducted by focusing on hosts for microbiota. However, a growing number of studies have reported that symbiotic microbiota are associated with the development of disease and the susceptibility/resistance to diseases.
- ・Given that future studies need to take microbiota as well as hosts for them into account, it is essential to define the normal (healthy) state in order to define the disease state.
- ・For blood glucose level, for example, the factors affecting glucose levels are well known and there is a reliable indicator (i.e., HbA1c) used for medical checkups.
- ・Defining the healthy state of microbiota considerably accelerates the application of microbiota to industries such as drug discovery.
Cohort studies are needed to understand microbiota in healthy individuals and in those with a disease.
To create a database of microbiota and apply microbiota to industries using the database,
it is essential to organize a consortium that allows the business community to cooperate.
The Japan Microbiome Consortium consists of 31 organizations at present.
