The Current and Future State of Department of Defense (DoD) Microbiome Research: a Summary of the Inaugural DoD Tri-Service Microbiome Consortium Informational Meeting

Sarah Glaven; Kenneth Racicot; Dagmar H Leary; J Philip Karl; Steven Arcidiacono; Blair C R Dancy; Linda A Chrisey; Jason W Soares

doi:10.1128/mSystems.00086-18

The Current and Future State of Department of Defense (DoD) Microbiome Research: a Summary of the Inaugural DoD Tri-Service Microbiome Consortium Informational Meeting

mSystems. 2018 Jul 10;3(4):e00086-18. doi: 10.1128/mSystems.00086-18. eCollection 2018 Jul-Aug.

Authors

Sarah Glaven¹, Kenneth Racicot², Dagmar H Leary¹, J Philip Karl³, Steven Arcidiacono⁴, Blair C R Dancy⁵, Linda A Chrisey⁶, Jason W Soares⁴

Affiliations

¹ Center for Biomolecular Science & Engineering, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, USA.
² Combat Feeding Directorate, U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development & Engineering Center, Natick, Massachusetts, USA.
³ Military Nutrition Division, U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, Natick, Massachusetts, USA.
⁴ Soldier Performance Optimization Directorate, U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development & Engineering Center, Natick, Massachusetts, USA.
⁵ U.S. Army Center for Environmental Health Research, Fort Detrick, Frederick, Maryland, USA.
⁶ Office of Naval Research, Naval Biosciences, Warfighter Protection & Applications Division, Arlington, Virginia, USA.

Abstract

The Tri-Service Microbiome Consortium (TSMC) was recently established to enhance collaboration, coordination, and communication of microbiome research among Department of Defense (DoD) organizations. The TSMC aims to serve as a forum for sharing information related to DoD microbiome research, policy, and applications, to monitor global advances relevant to human health and performance, to identify priority objectives, and to facilitate Tri-Service (Army, Navy, and Air Force) collaborative research. The inaugural TSMC workshop held on 10 to 11 May 2017 brought together almost 100 attendees from across the DoD and several key DoD partners. The meeting outcomes informed attendees of the scope of current DoD microbiome research efforts and identified knowledge gaps, collaborative/leveraging opportunities, research barriers/challenges, and future directions. This report details meeting presentations and discussions with special emphasis on Tri-Service labs' current research activities.

Keywords: Department of Defense; TSMC; Tri-Service Microbiome Consortium; Warfighter; bioinformatics; health; microbiome; performance.