The call for launching the program came from Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and was echoed by NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, NCI Chief Science Advisor George Sigounas, and Head of the NCI Cancer Immunology Section Giorgio Trinchieri.
The symposium, which took place on the City of Hope campus in Duarte, CA, May 13, was co-sponsored by NIH.
The new effort would in part build on the results of a two-phase Human Microbiome Program that ran between 2007 and 2016 and received $170 million from the NIH Common Fund.
“As you know, the microbiome is now recognized as the biggest organ in the body. It affects the health of all of our other organs. It probably affects our mental health as well, and yet we know less of it than any other organ,” Kennedy said at the City of Hope symposium.
“And that’s why we need to look at our immune system first, and our microbiome first, and start finally dedicating the resources to make those studies that should have been done long ago,” Kennedy said. “You can still reverse the chronic disease epidemic. Doing so will take a combined national effort of researchers to work with us, help us unlock the sequence of the microbiome.”
Subsequently, HHS issued a press release in which Kennedy is quoted referring to research in the microbiome as a “national ‘moonshot’ priority.”
