Integrated Microbiome Platforms for Advancing Causation Testing and Translation (IMPACTT)

Our body surfaces, including the gut, mouth, skin, and lung, are all colonized by trillions of microbes. Colonization is a dynamic process that begins primarily at birth and is heavily influenced by environmental factors, including mode of birth, diet, antibiotic use, hygiene and health status. Alterations in microbial communities are associated with a number of diseases, such as allergy, autoimmunity, autism, and obesity. However, association is not the same as causation. Changes in the microbiome could lead to disease, occur as a result of disease, or both. Therefore, we must clearly define microbial function and identify the molecular mechanisms by which the microbiome interacts with the human host to influence health. Such functional studies will lead to the development of new therapeutics for disease treatment and prevention. We will establish a Microbiome Research Core based on Integrated Microbiome Platforms for Advancing Causation Testing and Translation (IMPACTT). IMPACTT is a multi-centre collaboration to provide expertise and sharing of resources to foster and standardize microbiome research across Canada. The new gnotobiotic facility at the University of Calgary will form the basis for the study of complex functional interactions between the microbiome and the host. It will allow for precise control of all colonizing microbes to identify mechanistic links between the microbiome and the host. IMPACTT will also facilitate microbiome studies in human cohorts by providing expertise for study design, sample collection, and computational analysis. IMPACTT will establish and maintain a large repository of microbes, with corresponding genetic and metabolic information, available to microbiome researchers across Canada to enable functional microbiome studies. Finally, we will also develop a platform to discover links between microbial genes, proteins, and metabolism with microbial function, and then further link this to human health and disease.