‘It is our obligation to future generations’: Scientists want thousands of human poop samples for microbe ‘doomsday vault’
Scientists are a human-free free freezing poop in a “doomsday” safe in Switzerland which already contains more than 1,000 fecal samples, and researchers now say that they want to raise 10,000 samples by 2029.
Indeed Nature communications. The Swiss storage installation also houses nearly 200 types of fermented food, which contain many “intestinal” microbes that could help keep the populations healthy, and the team plans to add environmental microbes to the collection.
The long -term objective is to have copies of saving microbes that live in humans, animals, plants and the environment so that future generations can do research, restore ecosystems and invent medical treatments if necessary.
“The loss of microbes is associated with an alarming increase in chronic diseases, such as allergic, autoimmune and metabolic disorders,” wrote researchers in the commentary. “The loss of microbial diversity extends to environmental ecosystems, compromising agricultural systems and environmental resilience.”
It is necessary to preserve all types of microbes, because human activities are responsible for the disturbance of microbiomas or microbial communities, humans, animals and the environment, according to the authors. For example, conventional agriculture, the thaw of permafrost due to human origin climate changeand the Overward antibiotics Error microbiomes so much that they may need to be saved in the future, the team wrote.
In relation: 8 ancient “zombie virus” that scientists have drawn from the melting permafrost
“Human activities exhaust our microbiome, and there is a lot of evidence of this,” Dr Martin BlaserDirector of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine at Rutgers University in New Jersey and co-author of the new comment, said in a statement.
There is currently no evidence that the reintroduction of frozen microbes in intestine or human ecosystem can restore it, but “we believe that one day science will improve enough for us to have very good restoration techniques,” said Blaser.
The project in Switzerland, called Microbiota Vault, started in 2018. The researchers who founded it were inspired by the Svalbard Global Seed VaultA “Doomsday” seed deposit in Norway which currently holds around 1.3 million plant samples to preserve genetic diversity because it decreases in the real world.
So far, the microbiota vault has been in its “launch” phase, where it has tested the feasibility of collecting and exporting poops and fermented foods from around the world, according to the comment. Researchers in Switzerland have received a total of 1,204 fecal samples and 190 samples of food from Benin, Brazil, Ethiopia, Ghana, Laos, Thailand and Switzerland over the past seven years, and these samples are currently stored at less than 112 degrees Fahrenheit (less 80 degrees) at the University of Zurich.
The initiative is now in a “growth” phase, where researchers wish to acquire thousands of additional samples, including threatened microbes of ecosystems, according to the comment. Plans are also underway to find a permanent location for the safe, ideally in a country with a cold climate, such as Switzerland or Canada.
“Perhaps in 100 years, having saved these microbes could prevent a major disaster,” Blaser said in the statement.
“It is our obligation towards future generations to preserve this microbial diversity,” added the team in the article.
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