FACT SHEET: Announcing the National Microbiome Initiative

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, in collaboration with Federal agencies and private-sector stakeholders, announced a new National Microbiome Initiative (NMI) to foster the integrated study of microbiomes across different ecosystems. Microbiomes maintain the healthy function of all ecosystems and issues can influence human health, climate change, food security, and other factors.

The NMI aims to advance understanding of microbiome behavior and enable protection and restoration of healthy microbiome function. The goals of the NMI include: Supporting interdisciplinary research, developing platform technologies, and expanding the microbiome workforce. The NMI will launch with a combined Federal agency investment of more than $121 million in fiscal year 2016 and 2017 funding for cross-ecosystem microbiome studies.

Read the full fact sheet at whitehouse.gov…