 Good morning and welcome to the International Human Microbiome Consortium Media Briefing hosted by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. This briefing will last approximately 60 minutes. There will be five primary speakers who will provide brief remarks and then members of the media will be able to ask questions. To ask a question, you can press star N1 on your touchstone phone. To enter the queue, you may remove yourself from the queue at any time by simply pressing the pound key. This call will be recorded, transcribed and available on the websites of participating organizations including the National Human Genome Research Institute. Now it's my pleasure to turn the program over to your moderator, Larry Thompson, Chief of Communications at the National Human Genome Research Institute. Good morning or good afternoon, depending on where you are in the world. My name is Larry Thompson and I'm the Communications Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute in the U.S. and please welcome you to this briefing. The press release describing today's announcement will be found on the page, the home page of my institute, the genome institute at www.genome.gov and at the European Molecular Biology Lab at www.embl.org at the end of the briefing. Participating members of the newly organized International Human Microbiome Consortium have been meeting in Heidelberg, Germany for the past two days. And there are a number of participants, a number of countries will be participating in this international effort including Australia, Canada, China, Europe as in the European Commission which will be one of the main funding organizations along with the U.S., France, Ireland, Japan, the Republic of Korea and of course the United States. So our expert panel will describe the agreements that have been reached, what they hope this consortium will accomplish. The panel in speaking order will be Dr. Jane Peterson, Associate Director of Extramural Research at the National Human Genome Research Institute representing the U.S. funders, Dr. Christian DeSantis from the Research Directorate of the European Commission representing the European funders, Dr. Dushko Erlich, Principal Investigator of the Metahit Project in Europe, Dr. George Weinstock, a Principal Investigator of the Human Microbiome Project in the United States and Dr. Para Bork, Head of the IHMC Bioinformatics Group at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and the host of this meeting in Heidelberg. So let us get started with opening remarks by Dr. Peterson. Jane? Thank you. The NIH is very pleased to be part of this international effort that we put together here in Heidelberg. We've had extensive experience with other international collaborations such as the Human Genome Project and results have been very important in advanced science and under our understanding of human health. The whole is usually greater than the sum of the parts in these collaborations. This collaboration will take a genome approach to identifying all the key microorganisms that live in and on the body for the purpose of understanding their contribution to health and disease. And when I say genome approach, I mean sampling the body parts and sequencing the DNA from a variety of organisms that we find there. This provides the identity of most microorganisms present in the sample, even those that are difficult to culture from human tissue. The European Commission and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on behalf of the U.S. government have signed a letter of intent to collaborate on this effort. And this letter spells out a number of important components of the government's mental collaboration and these elements have now been, for the most part, adopted by the International Human Microbiome Consortium. These principles are free and open release of data and resources generated by these projects. Coordination of research plans to make them as efficient as possible and for efficient use of resources on unnecessary duplication and to share innovative developments on how best to answer the questions raised by the project. I'm looking forward to this collaboration. I think it's going to be a wonderful collaboration that we put together and we'll learn a lot from each other. I'm going to turn it over now to Dr. Christian Dessant from the European Commission. Thank you, Jane. I'm pleased that the European Commission is playing a leadership and funding role in the International Human Microbiome Consortium that will lead to understanding how our microbial companions impact on our heads. I'm also pleased that there is a formal agreement between the European Commission and the U.S. government to formalize this effort and to ensure that high-quality research will be accomplished by the researchers supported through this enterprise. The agreement between the two countries and other countries from other parts of the world that have yet to join the consortium continues the tradition of international collaboration which has been such a benefit for all peoples everywhere. Sharing the knowledge generated within this consortium with researchers around the world is crucial for determining the complex role of the microbiome in the virus disease. Sharing this knowledge will accelerate the discovery of better drugs for different pathologies as well as improve prevention of illness in people of any age or nationality. During the meeting here in Heidelberg, we agreed to general principles for membership and common policies to provide data rapidly into public databases. It became also clear, apparent that participation through the International Human Microbiome Consortium might involve eight to eleven projects from ten different countries. Globally, we estimate that more than 200 million U.S. dollars will be committed to the International Human Microbiome Consortium. In five years, we expect to be sequencing more than a thousand microbial genomes and sampling will be taken from more than a thousand individuals at different body size. I will now turn into Dusko Erlich. We know that there are ten times more microbial cells in our own body than our own cells. That there are hundred times more microbial genes that are active in our body than our own genes. We know that microbes that live with us play an important role in our health and disease. But we do not know by far what these microorganisms are and how do they act. IHMC aims to provide description of microbial genes and genomes and find how do they work. This should lead to better understanding of human biology and also better understanding of disease and health. The MetaHeat project will contribute first to the reference catalogue of genes and genomes by analyzing individuals from two European regions, Mediterranean, Spain, and Nordic in Denmark. And it will focus on two pathologies of increasing social importance, obesity and inflammatory bowel disease. Metagenome from some 400 individuals will be examined by very high throughput DNA sequencing techniques. We are looking for associations between bacterial genes and human disease. So MetaHeat fits perfectly with overall goals of IHMC. And participants in the project are pleased and proud to be part of IHMC. I will pass now the microphone to George Weinstock. Thank you, Dusko. I'm here with my colleagues from other genome centers in the U.S. representing the NIH component of the Human Microbiome Project. So I'm at the Washington University Genome Center and my colleagues are from the Genome Center at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Baylor College of Medicine's Genome Center in Houston, and the Jake Craig Venture Institute, which is in Rockville, Maryland. And then we also have the leader of the data center, which is at the University of Maryland here. And that group really comprises the main infrastructure for the NIH program. The NIH program is focusing on articulating the microbial composition of five body sites, the oral, vaginal, skin, nasal, and gastrointestinal tract microorganisms. And we're at the moment focusing on describing the microbial communities in healthy or normal individuals as a prelude to studying how those communities change to cause disease or to be affected by disease states. We're extremely excited about what's happened here in the last two days with the international community because, you know, there's really very, very few projects that allow us to get scientists together from all the points of the compass with a common goal and a project of this scale and this importance. So we spent the last two days without any difficulty coming to agreements about data release, about ethical considerations, about technology, about the different projects going on in the different parts of the world. And I think we're all very excited about looking forward to how the bridges that we've started to build here will be enhanced and allow all of us to do our projects locally, as well as the synergy that comes from getting people together with different ideas. So I'll pass it now to Per Borch, who is at the European Molecular Biology Lab here in Heidelberg. Yeah, thanks. As a local organizer, I also would like to express my excitement of the meetings. So many people could agree on a number of very complex and complicated issues, such as data releases, as was mentioned. And also my home institute in the EMBL, that includes the EPI, they promote open access. So we are very happy that the option here actually was voted for open access policies about the data. And that comes to the issue where lots of effort has to be spent because of the flow of very heterogeneous data and the integration. Because data will be generated in very different countries and parts of the world with very different premises and projects. So the data range from deep profiling of individuals to a broad spectrum of studies under various conditions, for example, these positions, and there are lots of contextual data, but we call metadata, age, gender, et cetera, et cetera, which add a huge value to understand those data and the impact of health and well-being. So for bioinformatics, it's a huge opportunity, but it's a huge challenge. And it has been agreed that at least the two large projects from NIH and from Europe that set up centers for the coordination and conservative analysis of the data and the closely interact. The data will also be released via the NCBI or the EBI in an open access way. So what's next? You have further rate that will be a kind of spectrum analysis and principles that have to be discovered. For example, how does species and gene composition change over time? Do we have our own pet species each and how different are the individuals really? So in parallel, I think very soon the first disease, studies with disease impact regarding diagnostics, for example, have to be expected. Yeah, with that, I pass it to Larry, I guess. Okay, yes. So this is Larry Thompson again. So we have several folks on the phone. So a few guys would like to ask a question of the expert panel. Now would be the time to indicate that to Kevin. So Kevin, want to give us the instructions again, please? Certainly. At this time, if you'd like to ask a question, please press the star and one on your touchstone phone. You may withdraw yourself at any time from the queue by pressing the pound key. Once again, to ask the question, please press the star and one on your touchstone phone. There we go. So Anna, would you like to go ahead and ask the first question? Would you please tell us where you're from? Introduce yourself and tell us where you're from. Sure. Hi. My name is Anna Pederick. I'm from Nature or I'm the Research Highlights Editor. I would like to ask a bit more about the project looking at Nordic and Mediterranean people. I don't know if someone could just tell me a bit more information about that. The Metahit project, which we look at at this. Excuse me. So because we can't see anybody's faces of our expert panel, would you also please identify yourself when you're responding so the reporters will know who's speaking? Thank you for the reminder. I thought that my accent will be so difficult. Dusko Ehrlich, Metahit Coordinator. So Metahit is focusing on populations in Spain and in Denmark. We will get information about healthy individuals there basically as a control situated to reflect just... Okay, I'll meet you in a minute, Anna. The bonus study is looking at healthy controls to compare to future studies. And the Copenhagen study is actually a cohort of people, of obese people, and people who aren't used to the equities, is that correct? In the Metahit study, it is a cohort of obese people and of course healthy control. Metahit will be studying about... This is in the queue, so reporters who are on the phone, if anybody else would like to ask another question, please indicate by doing whatever it was that Kevin said a minute ago, star one I guess is what you're supposed to point. Okay, so Gretchen has indicated that you would like to do a story or ask a question. So Gretchen, would you introduce yourself and tell us where you're from and go ahead with your question, please? Gretchen Vogel from Science Magazine. Just a quick follow-up question to Anna's question and then a separate question. 200 individuals from the 5,000 strong cohort, you said, are those individuals then all obese or is that a mixture of obese and non-obese individuals? It's a mixture of obese and non-obese, 60. Non-obese, 60 have a particular obese phenotype which is ventral obesity and 60 have another phenotype of obesity which is subcutaneous obesity. The reason is that comorbidity is correlated with the first type but not with the second type. It's very interesting finding out whether of course microbiome in these populations are different. Okay, and you're looking at the gut microbiome then for those? Yes, that is correct. I'm sorry I should have specified that. Okay, good. And then in general, I understand that you're very excited, you're all very excited about these agreements that have been signed. What I didn't quite grasp is what's new here? How will this change your work? These projects were already underway. Does this guarantee new money? Is this new rules about how these projects will then release their data? That was brought up a couple of times. New methods of coordinating, who does what? Can anybody sort of summarize for me a couple of the most important impacts that these agreements will have on how research is conducted? This is Jane Peterson. I'm going to try to answer this but I invite my colleagues here to add topics that I might not think of. So what's new here is that this is a field that really is very young. We all met together for the first time two and a half years ago, I think maybe three, and we all realized that there was a growing interest in studying this field and that there was more to be gained by collaborating and promoting the field than there was to working alone. What's very important in studying the human microbiome is comparing results from all around the world. As you heard, we have nine countries represented here from around the world. Environment has a significant impact on human microbiome content and portions, et cetera. That's one important thing that we'll get out of this collaboration and ability to compare those data directly. Of course, anybody can access the data and do that also, but the consortium working together will have a very efficient way of doing that. Important about this meeting was that we all agreed that the data will be open so that we can all look at the data and so that the rest of the world can look at it and ask questions that we would never have thought of. And then you also asked about does this get us more fun. Some of the projects such as the Metahit project and the NIH human microbiome project are already set in the amount of funds. The Canadian project has a set amount of funds. Let me think about the other ones, the Korean project and the Chinese projects, but some of the others such as Australia and Ireland perhaps are still in the formation of their consortiums and they're putting and they are still looking for additional funds so it may actually increase the funds in the long run. But what we hope the whole consortium, the interest in human microbiome across the world will do is stimulate funding around the world for this area of research in looking at human disease. This is what you're saying from the community should be said. Let me take another angle to this, the gene environment interaction. There's a lot of buzz around what this means and I think the environmental consequences of gene and malinter interaction where this project really will have a major impact. I think we will understand a lot more about the environmental influence on health than we ever did ever before. Is that because you have access to more environments around the world essentially? Absolutely, isolated populations, special populations, they are either in China or either in the UK, it's in Europe or in North America. I think we do need opportunity here. Can I have one more follow up? Yes, go ahead. One thing I noticed is that most of the participants are from industrialized countries. Are there any projects that are looking at the differences between or are looking at populations in, say, Africa or South America or some developing countries? China probably is not an English-like country yet. I'm a university coordinator for Chinese Metagot Project which is to look at the question behind why when we change our diet from traditional to more western type in the past 20 years also we have a dramatic increase of metabolic diseases, diet related. Probably gut microbiota plays a substantial role in this change of disease spectrum. And so one thing we are doing now is try to sequence the metagenome of 10 Chinese people who are still keeping the traditional diet. And so this can be used as a reference for us to understand why change of diet to western type will make Chinese people become susceptible to metabolic diseases. And this is what we are doing for this part of the Chinese project. Dushko, early here. Maybe I'd just like to add a couple of statements. First, metagenome is huge, much bigger than the human genome. It was just not conceivable for anybody to do it on his or her own. Many Chinese people need it to get together. So clearly when you work together, when you pull the data, when you get comprehensive description of metagenome, there is a great benefit and that's one of the objectives of IHMC. Now the point about you have to keep in mind, at least one can keep in mind that description of human metagenome is extremely poor yet. We have to start somewhere. So we are starting in places where resources are available. But it will be of course wonderful and we need to meet the challenge. How do we address in places where... This is Jane Peterson again. I should mention that we've had interest from an investigator in Mexico, which again is sort of in between an industrialized country and one of the countries that is getting to it industrialized. Oh, and there's also interest from India and so we don't know quite how those countries are going to work into the consortium. Somebody else? Retchen, did you have a follow-up? Nope. So if there is anybody else, I don't have any other questions in the queue currently. Does anybody else have a question? Does anybody else there? Got the phone number for me there. And Larry Thompson's line has been reconnected. Is Sally Davis' line still on? Yes, we're still here. Okay. And is anybody, any of the reporters still on the line? I can see them, Kevin, but can you confirm they're still there? I still see Gretchen Vogel and that's about it actually. If we still have Gretchen Vogel's line, Anna Lynn Wegner and Rebecca Colberg. Okay, so actually the only reporter that we still seem to have on the line is Gretchen. So Gretchen, I guess if you have any other questions, you've got the whole panel and if not, we'll bring this to a conclusion. I can't hear anybody. Gretchen, your line is reopened. You can ask your question. Okay, I guess since I have an exclusive, I'll ask another question. Please go ahead. Just to follow up briefly, just to make sure I understood correctly, the agreements that come out of this will definitely assist in coordinating data sharing. And then is there a master plan for dividing up the work or is that something that will sort of happen as the projects get underway and as more people join the consortium? How will that be handled? Or have you come up with a master plan as part of your meeting here? So this is Jane Peterson again. Each group will do their own research. Some of us are looking at healthy individuals. Some are looking at different diseases. A lot are looking in the gut at different gut-related diseases. There's one looking at aging people. I'm trying to think what the other sites are. And then we will meet together to discuss, and obviously our data will be shared because it will be freely available. So it's not like the human genome where we're all doing the same, working with the same samples. We're all working with different samples to generate information about the same biological site, I guess I would say. Does anybody want to add to that? What are different diseases? Jules Doré from France. I'll just add a word. We have seen projects emerging, focusing on the sequencing of the genome of individual bacterial strains isolated from the human gut. And it was quite obvious that the sharing of information and arbitration on decisions on who is doing which genome was quite important. And the IHMC discussions are contributing very significantly towards this hominidation. If that reminds me, we will have a common strain list that all the groups are doing, and we will not duplicate. So this is for the whole genome sequencing. So we'll make sure that the groups that are sequencing the entire genome of a microbe will be doing something unique and won't be duplicating it with another country. But the metagenomic studies are being done on all different types of cohorts. Sure, that makes sense. Okay. And are there any other questions? Again, as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press the star and one on your touch-tone phone. And I'm not seeing any. You got everything you need, Gretchen? I'm going to guess that's a yes. So I guess I would like to bring this to a close then, and thank everyone for participating in today's briefing. I'll remind you that there will be a press release put up about this consortium announcement on both www.genome.gov and www.embl.org, where there will also be media contact numbers for the media for the press if you need to try to reach anybody, although most of the participants are in Heidelberg, so we'll do the best we can to hook you up. And then we will post the audio of this file as quickly as we can followed by a transcript as soon as that's completed. So again, I'd like to thank everyone for participating, and with that, I'd like to bring this briefing to a close. Thank you.