Digital microbes for munching yourself healthy
Hundreds of bacterial species live in the human gut, helping to digest food. The metabolic processes of these bacteria are not only tremendously important to human health – they are also tremendously complex. A research team at the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) of the University of Luxembourg has taken an important step in modelling the complexity of the human gut's bacterial communities – the microbiome – on the computer. The researchers gathered all known data on the metabolism of 773 bacterial strains – more than ever before. Working from this data, they developed a computer model for each bacterial strain. This collection, known as AGORA, can now be used on the computer to simulate metabolic processes taking place in the microbes and to investigate how they affect the metabolism of other microbes and that of the human host. The LCSB team publishes its results in the scientific journal...