Microbiome

The varied community of microorganisms that live in different parts of the body, particularly the gut, is referred to as the human microbiome. These microorganisms are mostly bacteria, but they can also be viruses, fungi, and archaea. These microbial communities are vital for immune regulation, nutrition synthesis, digestion, and pathogen defense. Metagenomics research has shown that homeostasis depends on a healthy, diverse microbiome, whereas dysbiosis, or imbalances in the microbiome, is linked to a variety of illnesses, such as obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, allergies, and neuropsychiatric disorders. The field of microbiome research is growing quickly, providing new information on diet-microbe interactions, probiotic treatments, and personalized medicine.

Microbiome Transplants for Skin, Lung, and Metabolic Diseases

Microbiome-based therapies are emerging as promising approaches for skin, lung, and metabolic diseases by restoring microbial balance, modulating immune responses, and targeting disease-associated dysbiosis, although most applications remain investigational outside recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection. Microbial transplantation, probiotics, engineered commensals, and metabolite-based interventions are expanding therapeutic possibilities while highlighting important challenges related to safety, engraftment, and regulatory oversight.

Microbiome and Cancer

Can you Treat a Food Allergy by Altering the Gut Microbiome?

The Microbiome of a Newborn

Fecal Microbiota Transplant

Human Microbiome Project (HMP)

Microbiome and Disease

Is There a Link Between Migraine and the Gut Microbiome?

How Does Your Diet Affect your Gut Microbiome?

What is Vaginal Microbiome?

Menopause and the Microbiome

Ovarian Microbiome Overview: Fertility, PCOS, and the Gut–Ovary Axis

See more featured articles »

Gut Microbiota

Parkinson's Disease and the Gut Microbiome

The Gut–Brain–Skin Axis: How Diet and Gut Health Influence Mood, Skin, and Aging

Risk Factors for Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth

Insight into the Skin Microbiome

Conjunctiva microbiota

How “Fad” Diets Affect the Gut Microbiota

The Microbiome and Aging

What is the Human Virome?

How Does the Diet Impact Microbiota?

Gut Bacteria and Autism Development

Scalp Microbiome Explained: What’s Living on Your Scalp and Why It Matters

The Effect of Intermittent Fasting on the Gut Microbiome

Semi-Volatile Organic Compounds (SVOCs) and the Microbiome

Skin Microbiota

Effects of a Gluten-Free Diet on the Gut Microbiota

Is There a Brain Microbiome?

How Gut Fungi and Archaea Influence Human Health

Microbiome-Host Cell Interactions

How Artificial Sweeteners Disrupt the Gut Microbiome, Or Do They?

Human Microbiome

Genetic Factors that Influence Bacterial Diversity in the Human Gut

Does the Microbiome Interact with the Human Endocrine System?

Do Serotonin and Antidepressants Affect the Microbiome?

Alzheimer's Disease and the Microbiome

Oral Microbiota

Fermented Foods and Gut Health

What Role do Microbiomes Play in Urinary Tract Infections?

What Role Does the Immune System and Microbiome Play in Health and Disease?

Achievements of the Human Microbiome Project

Disease Susceptibility and the Microbiome

Vaginal Microbiome and Premature Birth

Antibiotics and the Microbiome

Fecal Microbiota Transplant Technique

Fecal Microbiota Transplant Regulation

Is Coffee Good for the Gut?

Drug Metabolism and Microbiome

Latest Microbiome News and Research

Gut microbes emerge as potential players in estrogen-driven cancers

A new review maps how the endocrine-microbiome axis expands the estrobolome concept, showing that gut microbes may alter estrogen recycling, produce hormone-like metabolites, and shape inflammation and tissue environments in hormone-driven cancers. Human evidence remains mostly associative, so the authors call for causal models, longitudinal multi-omics, multi-kingdom profiling, and sex-stratified studies before microbiome-guided cancer strategies enter routine care.

25 Jun 2026

Scientists find link between bacterium in the gut ecosystem and lupus

Scientists at UT Health San Antonio, the academic health center of The University of Texas at San Antonio, found a link between a bacterium in the gut microbiome, or ecosystem, and lupus, which could lead to more effective treatment of the disease, in a study published in Nature Communications.

25 Jun 2026

Blood metabolites reveal lifestyle links to brain health before dementia

Blood metabolome profiling in dementia-free middle-aged adults linked 14 metabolites to cognition and 22 metabolites to MRI markers of brain health. Lifestyle, clinical factors, medication use and gut microbiota appeared to shape many of these metabolites, with ergothioneine emerging as a notable cognition-linked signal.

25 Jun 2026

Scientists find a universal gut microbiome pattern linked to colorectal cancer

Researchers analyzed 6,779 stool microbiome profiles and 906 tissue samples to identify a colorectal cancer microbial signature that remained consistent across age groups, populations, and sequencing methods. The signature aligned with tumor-resident microbes, showed weaker detection for adenomas, and was inversely associated with dietary fiber intake.

25 Jun 2026

Blueberries may boost children's memory and mood

Research suggests blueberry compounds could enhance mood and cognitive function in children, yet stronger evidence is required for clinical recommendations.

25 Jun 2026

European project receives €15 million to study phage-based therapies

Bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics. One alternative is treatment with viruses that exclusively infect bacteria, known as phages.

25 Jun 2026

Comprehensive gut microbiome analysis reveals robust colorectal cancer signature

Researchers have long suspected that the gut microbiome – the community of bacteria and other microorganisms living in the intestine – is closely linked to colorectal cancer.

24 Jun 2026

Microbes trigger cell death to boost cancer immunotherapy effectiveness

Traditional cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiotherapy can induce immunogenic cell death (ICD), but their efficacy is often limited by drug resistance, severe off-target toxicity, and immune-related adverse events.

24 Jun 2026

Gut fungi play key role in pediatric allergic diseases development

Two new studies jointly published in Nature: The Clinical Microbiome reveal that certain species of fungi in the gut play a key role in the development of immune dysregulation and some pediatric allergic diseases - and may be promising targets for new therapies.

23 Jun 2026

Synthetic gut communities reveal how diet rewires the microbiome

Synthetic microbial communities give researchers controlled models for testing how diet reshapes gut microbial ecology, metabolism, and host-relevant responses. The review highlights how SynComs can strengthen causal inference, improve intervention testing, and support future precision nutrition, while noting major challenges in stability, standardization, and ecological realism.

21 Jun 2026

Computer models could design more effective probiotic supplements

Probiotic supplements found in drugstores nationwide contain an assortment of microbes sold for specific health purposes despite limited understanding of the microbes' connections to their marketed use, new University of Virginia School of Medicine research reveals.

18 Jun 2026

Gut microbes may help explain why obesity and type 2 diabetes become harder to reverse

This review describes how gut microbial messengers, including SCFAs, microbiota-modified bile acids, neuroactive metabolites, and extracellular vesicles, may shape obesity and type 2 diabetes through the microbiota-gut-brain axis.

17 Jun 2026

Synthetic biology platform unmasks hidden bacterial targets of bacteriophages

An interdisciplinary team of Rice University researchers has uncovered previously unknown relationships between bacteriophages - viruses that infect bacteria - and their bacterial hosts, offering a powerful new tool for next-generation microbiome engineering.

17 Jun 2026

Gut bacteria may help explain why fatigue appears before illness

A small study of healthy Japanese adults found that fatigue was associated with distinct gut microbiome, microbial gene, and fecal metabolite patterns. The findings suggest fatigue may track with altered microbial energy metabolism and oxidative stress-related functional potential, but larger longitudinal studies are needed to test causality and clinical value.

16 Jun 2026

Gut microbes control liver genes by flipping DNA switches

A local research study led by scientists from the A*STAR Genome Institute of Singapore (A*STAR GIS) has uncovered how the gut microbiome can influence gene activity in the liver by acting on short stretches of regulatory DNA that function like molecular "switches".

15 Jun 2026