As researchers, we want to ensure that scientific discoveries can benefit as many people as possible. An essential part of this is to prioritise participant diversity from the start of a study to help to maximise the quality and impact of research findings. Studies should include individuals of different ages, sexes, races, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds (among other factors) so that the results are applicable to the broader population, not just specific groups of people.
A lack of diversity in research can have significant health, social and economic impacts. For instance, an individual’s ethnic background can influence their reaction to some medications, while a patient’s sex can influence their individual disease risks and treatment outcomes. Without diverse representation in clinical trials, we risk overlooking crucial information about how different people respond to treatments. This means that certain groups may not receive optimal care.
Diversity is equally crucial in biobanking. Collecting samples from diverse populations enables researchers to better understand how genetics, environment and other factors affect an individual’s disease risk, progression and treatment response. Biobanks that prioritise diversity will be able to support research that is more representative of the broader population, ultimately leading to more inclusive and effective medical advancements.
The Australian Human Microbiome Biobank: our dedication to diversity
While most biobanks collect and store human tissue (e.g., blood or tumour biopsies), the Australian Human Microbiome Biobank (AHMB) is dedicated to banking the microbes that live in and on the human body. Researchers can study how these microbes influence our health and explore their potential as new diagnostic or therapeutic products.
However, just because we’re not storing human tissue doesn’t mean we don’t prioritise diversity. At the AHMB, we not only want to capture a diverse population of donors; we also want to collect the greatest possible diversity of microbes.
Genetically, any two humans are roughly 99.9% similar1. In contrast, our microbiomes are remarkably different—each of us houses hundreds of unique microbial species in our gut microbiome alone2, and no two people will have the same microbiome composition. This is because your microbiome is influenced by a combination of factors that make you unique, such as your genetics, where you live, and your age, lifestyle and diet.
In fact, microbial diversity is a key indicator of a healthy microbiome3. Having diversity in both microbial species and their functions ensures we can break down different types of foods, produce a variety of vitamins and other beneficial compounds, and mount an effective defense against unwanted pathogens.
Capturing this diversity in a biobank like the AHMB will help us better understand the unique influence each of these microbes has on our health. Even very closely related species (or strains of the same species) perform functions that affect our health differently4. For example, it can be easy to associate Escherichia coli with a nasty bout of food poisoning. And while specific strains can cause severe illness, there are harmless (and even beneficial) strains of E. coli present in the gut of most people. By capturing more diverse microbes in our biobank, we can study the differences between these and other microbial strains so that we can better understand what is good and bad for our health.
A diverse biobank is key to discovery
At AHMB, we are working hard to expand the diversity of microbes in our collection. Until recently, researchers were limited by what could be grown in the lab with traditional microbiology methods. This is because some microbes can be rather high maintenance, requiring very specific nutrients or environmental conditions to grow. In the past few years, our team has developed a new way to isolate these difficult-to-culture microbes so that we can study their role in human health and disease.
Having microbial diversity in the AHMB will provide more opportunity for the discovery of novel proteins and enzymes, antibiotics or other compounds produced by bacteria that are beneficial to our health. Importantly, collecting samples from diverse populations will maximise the number of different microbes we can collect and can even help us understand how these microbes behave in people from different backgrounds. This in turn will lead to more opportunities to improve the health of populations around the world.
The take-away
Diversity in biobanking is key to conducting high quality, equitable research. By donating a sample to the AHMB, you are helping us achieve our goal of building a diverse resource to drive future discoveries. Learn how you can get involved here.
References
- National Institutes of Health (US); Biological Sciences Curriculum Study. NIH Curriculum Supplement Series [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Institutes of Health (US); 2007. Understanding Human Genetic Variation. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK20363/
- Qin, J. et al. A human gut microbial gene catalogue established by metagenomic sequencing. Nature 464, 59-65, doi:10.1038/nature08821 (2010).
- Lloyd-Price, J., Abu-Ali, G. & Huttenhower, C. The healthy human microbiome. Genome Med 8, 51 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13073-016-0307-y
- Yan, Y., Nguyen, L. H., Franzosa, E. A. & Huttenhower, C. Strain-level epidemiology of microbial communities and the human microbiome. Genome Med 12, doi:10.1186/s13073-020-00765-y (2020).
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