Microbiome Research

Overview

Microbiomes are the communities of microorganisms that live on or in people, plants, soil, oceans, and the atmosphere. Microbiomes can maintain healthy function of these diverse ecosystems, and influence human health, climate change, food security, and other factors. Dysbiosis and dysfunctional microbiomes are associated with issues including human chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, asthma, cancer, and pre-cancerous states.

Analysis of the microbiome and associated metabolites over time can yield information that may serve as a diagnostic of: microbial exposure, cancer risk, incidence, and progression, as well as treatment response. The study of the microbiome in various epidemiologic cohorts may also identify modifiable risk factors and mechanisms of carcinogenesis, which may inform preventative measures and early diagnosis.

Relevant Funding Opportunities

• Modulating Human Microbiome Function to Enhance Immune Responses Against Cancer – expires January 8, 2025
  • PAR-22-061 (R01)
  • PAR-22-062 (R21)
• Epidemiologic Research on Emerging Risk Factors and Liver Cancer Susceptibility - expires May 8, 2025
  • PAR-22-083 (R01)
  • PAR-22-084 (R21)
• Biology of Bladder Cancer – expires September 8, 2025
  • PAR-22-218 (R01)
  • PAR-22-219 (R21)
• Co-infection and Cancer - expires November 17, 2025, unless reissued
  • PAR-23-055 (R01)
  • PAR-23-056 (R21)
• Addressing the Impact of Structural Racism and Discrimination on Minority Health and Health Disparities – expires January 8, 2026
  • PAR-23-112 (R01)

EGRP also encourages methods development or hypothesis-driven investigator-initiated grant applications on the topic of microbiome research.

EGRP joins with other NCI Divisions, Offices, and Centers and other Institutes and Centers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund grant applications submitted in response to funding opportunities.

View All Cancer Control Funding Opportunities

Related Workshops

• Precision Probiotic Therapies—Challenges and Opportunities (November 2021)
• Next Steps in Studying the Human Microbiome and Health in Prospective Studies (May 2017)

Public Resources

• Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) National Microbiome Initiative (NMI) Fact Sheet [PDF]
  A May 13, 2016 announcement from the White House OSTP, in collaboration with Federal agencies and private-sector stakeholders, introducing the NMI and various events. The NMI aims to advance understanding of microbiome behavior and enable protection and restoration of healthy microbiome function.

Research Resources

• The Human Microbiome Project (HMP)
  The NIH HMP is one of several international efforts designed to take advantage of large scale, high through multi ‘omics analyses to study the microbiome in human health. As a community resource program, the HMP is a partner in an international collaboration to generate rich, comprehensive, and publicly available datasets of the microbiome. This information will be available worldwide for use by investigators and others in efforts to understand and improve human health.
• The Human Microbiome Project Data Analysis and Coordinating Center (HMPDACC) Data Portal
  The HMP DACC Data Portal provides access to all publicly available HMP data sets, generated from healthy human subjects and demonstration project subjects.
• The Integrative Human Microbiome Project (iHMP)
  The second phase of the HMP with a goal to generate resources to facilitate characterization of the human microbiota to further our understanding of how the microbiome impacts human health and disease.