Studies deliver new blow to cancer microbiome literature—and offer a way forward. Two analyses of microbial DNA in tumor samples aim to put controversy-riddled field back on track (Sep 2025, Micronoma) Article

[Michael Harrop]

https://www.science.org/content/article/studies-deliver-new-blow-cancer-microbiome-literature-and-offer-way-forward

I'm posting this because Rob Knight is a major figure in the microbiome world. Martin J. Blaser, M.D. was on their scientific advisory board. https://web.archive.org/web/20201216021358/https://micronoma.com/

Sandrine Miller worked at UCSD with Rob Knight, and is listed as the "Co-Founder, Board Member, President and Chief Executive Officer".

It is more evidence of how quickly the "purely academic" domain jumps at the chance to make bank in the research industrial complex, rather than strive for solutions to the problems they research & write about.

The now-retracted 2020 Nature paper compared whole-genome sequencing data from human tissue samples in the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) with a database of microbial DNA. Its authors claimed they had detected distinct microbial profiles for dozens of different cancers—and could predict some tumors’ presence by measuring bacterial DNA circulating in a person’s blood.

Micronoma, a company founded in 2019 by University of California San Diego microbiome researcher Rob Knight and two other co-authors on the Nature paper, raised millions of dollars to develop a blood test for lung cancer and other malignancies based on this principle.

Micronoma could not be reached for comment: The company’s CEO left shortly after the criticisms surfaced in 2023, and its website and social media pages have since gone dark.

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