The goal for this application is to build a team of researchers who are interested in investigating the gut microbiome and how it affects the health and disease of children.  The gut microbiome is recognized as an important organ that impacts health and disease.  It is an area of intense research that has been identified by the NIH as high priority.  Currently the NIH has over 300 active RFAs that solicit applications to understand the microbiome across different disciplines.  Many novel therapies are being explored based on gut microbial intervention and the focus of many of the national and international meetings has recently become the microbiome.  There are many of our own researchers that have a focus and a keen interest in understanding the gut microbiome. It is imperative to build teams to tackle and understand the gut microbiome in a multidisciplinary approach.  Those teams would comprise a number of clinicians and basic researchers who have a passion to understand and translate the microbiome.  The charge of this task would fall short in the absence of strong collaborations with bioinformatics scientists and researchers knowledgeable in the different aspects of omics, namely metagenomics, proteomics and metabolomics. 

NIH Funding Acknowledgment: Important - All publications resulting from the utilization of SC CTSI resources are required to credit the SC CTSI grant by including the NIH funding acknowledgment and must comply with the NIH Public Access Policy.