New College-wide Network of Excellence - Microbiome@Imperial

Microbiome@Imperial, a multidisciplinary Network of Excellence, will be hosted in the Department of Surgery and Cancer.

A cross-faculty bid led by Professor Marc-Emmanuel Dumas, with Dr Thomas Bell, Dr Michael Cox, Professor Julian Marchesi and Professor Miriam Moffatt has been supported by Imperial College London and the Vice-Provost for Research and Enterprise.

The Microbiome@Imperial Network brings together over 50 academic groups from across Imperial faculties, to foster an integrated forum for efficient coordination of internal resources and strategic research efforts. This will facilitate access to technology toolkits and help to educate the next generation of microbiome scientists and the public.

The microbiome is of critical importance to the environment, human biology and medicine. We are just beginning to understand the far-fetching interactions between microorganisms with their environment and these investigations necessarily span multiple disciplines.

Microbiomes are central to the goods and services provided by natural and managed ecosystems, and so are increasingly at the forefront of decisions about land usage, climate change, and species conservation. Simultaneously there is an ongoing revolution in clinical sciences where the human microbiome is being implicated in an incredible range of diseases and also in maintaining health.

Speaking about the new Network, Professor Dumas said: "Microbiomes are key to human health, food safety and the environment but microbiome diversity is under threat due to various reasons, from antibiotics to global warming. Microbial communities can help us solve global challenges such as renewable energies, food security and human health, but there is a certain lack of regulation of microbiome-based products and the society is keen to get answers. Altogether, this is a unique opportunity to consolidate and coordinate College-wide efforts for research, teaching and public engagement around our bacterial friends. The Network creates a unique focal point for advancing microbiome sciences, training the next generation and informing the public, industry and policy-makers."

The Imperial networks and Centres of Excellence aim to galvanise a critical mass of researchers, transcending Faculty boundaries to support a multidisciplinary theme. The Imperial Networks of Excellence aim to establish and grow connections around an important multidisciplinary area that is being explored at an earlier stage than the centres.

The cross-faculty Network of Excellence "Microbiome @ Imperial” will be having its launch event on Thursday 9th May 2019, 1:30pm. Register your place.