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 Bacteriology

Bacteria find their home in animals, including human beings. They are present in the gastrointestinal tract, mouth, skin, airways, urogenital tract, blood and the surface of the eyeball.  They are everywhere within and upon us.  We cannot see them, but they are there.  And, generally speaking, there for a good purpose.  We are dependent upon them for many things.  Nature's ways are difficult to discern, but once bio-scientists become involved and intrigued, they find some fascinating scenarios.

Roughly speaking, the figure of bacterial species living within and upon us numbers in the thousands.  That's species, not the numbers of bacteria themselves that ensconce themselves comfortably
on our skin, in our gastrointestinal tract, etc., etc.  There are some 5,177 unique microbial taxonomic profiles, is how the scientists put it - that inhabit us.  And this is the number that the Microbiome Project has published in a press release.

When the Human Genome Project succeeded in its purpose to map the entire human genome sequence, a professor specializing in microbiology at the University of British Columbia - Julian Davies - set out an intriguing argument in the journal Science.  He held that science would never be able to fully understand how the human body operates without also understanding the genomes of the bacteria that inhabit us.

It is estimated that humans host ten times as many bacteria in our bodies as we do human cells.

Five years on, the Human Microbiome Project, involving 200 scientists, their collaboration valued at $250-million, have published the results of their study in both the journal Nature and the Public Library of Science representing an online research database.  The investigators began by sampling sites on the bodies of hundreds of human test subjects.  To conclude that human beings are, in a sense, walking, living, breathing infectious agents.

We start out on this journey called life, living in fairly balanced harmony with a vast host of bacteria having picked up bacteria through our passage in our mothers' birth canal, and imbibing more through breast milk.  The type of biome that we inherit also speaks, in all likelihood, to the genetic influence of our predisposition to lose or to retain weight.

And no doubt also, to our propensity to a great many other things, including succumbing to various types of illnesses, chronic and otherwise.  As research continues, time will most certainly tell.

If all of this is not utterly fascinating, then what else might be?

bacteria_human_body.jpg

bacteria_human_body.jpg