Excerpt
SUMMARY: Very little has been known about the trillions of bacteria and other micro-organisms in our bodies. But now, scientists with the Human Microbiome Project have completed the first microbial map of healthy humans. Jeffrey Brown speaks with Dr. Eric Green, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute.
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): It's the sort of thing that might literally make your skin crawl, but it's very much a fact of life. Each of us harbors trillions of bacteria and other microorganisms on and in our bodies.
Another fact, very little has been known about these microbes, what they are, where they are, how they differ on an individual person and from person to person. But now scientists, more than 200 of them involved in a five-year project called the Human Microbiome Project, have completed the first microbial map of healthy human beings. And that could eventually help understand and combat some diseases.
The research has just been published.
Here to tell us about it is Dr. Eric Green, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, which funded the research.
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