290

19

Microbiomics

is clamped to the surface by another bacterium, and within it are at least three further

species of bacteria that help to digest the wood.

Efforts to investigate this microbial richness seem to have been disproportion-

ately small with respect to its evident importance for the maintenance of a healthy

organism. A corollary of this relative neglect has been the rather casual attitude of

medicine towards this indispensable miniature ecosystem. For example, antibiotics

are frequently prescribed to eliminate a bacterial infection of the “main” organism,

heedless of the devastation that the antibiotics are likely to inflict on gastrointestinal

microbial diversity, with the likelihood of consequential ill health. Of similar con-

cern is the well-nigh endemic use of certain herbicides, the residues of which that

remain in food destined for human consumption may have deleterious effects on the

gut microbes. ⁶

Nevertheless, progress in metagenomics has led to a great improvement in knowl-

edge and understanding of the human gut microbiome. ⁷ Very recently the metabolism

of many thousand human gut microörganisms has been reconstructed; ⁸ this will well

serve the development of personalized medicine.

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6 Samsel and Seneff (2013).

7 Altamirano et al. (2020).

8 Heinken et al. (2023).