Recent breakthroughs have recalibrated our understanding of the biodiversity of microbial communities (i.e., microbiomes), revealed their ubiquitous distribution in nature, and demonstrated their ability to respond to and influence their environment. Microbiome research is poised to transform society: it has captured public imagination, ushered in new industrial opportunities, and potentiated changes in how we manage health and natural resources. However, actualizing this transformation requires greater understanding of how microbiomes and their environments interact. For microbiome research to realize its promise of delivering meaningful social applications, microbiome science must progress beyond determining who is there to understanding what they are doing, the mechanisms underlying how they do it, and the integrative processes that dictate why they do it.
The Oregon State University Microbiome Initiative (OMBI) is a microbiome research and education program that centers on answering these questions. OMBI is composed of researchers from diverse disciplines who integrate their expertise to solve several shared goals:
Our investigators consider a diverse array of environments, including aquatic, terrestrial, and animal and plant-associated microbiomes. Much of our effort includes developing the research tools to needed to understand how microbiomes interact with these environments. Ultimately, we hope that our interdisciplinary perspective will contribute to a unified theory of how microbiomes operate and change, as well as the development of socially impactful research products.
Microbiome Research Conferences and Symposia
OMBI serves to enhance awareness of cutting edge research and accelerate interactions amongst microbiome scientists, especially those spanning diverse areas of research. To this end, OMBI hosts research discussions, lectures, and conferences. A few prior and upcoming events are included below.
Microbiome Research Training
A central goal of OMBI is to train scientists in the myriad methods relevant to microbiome research. There are several opportunities to obtain this training.
OMBI periodically hosts training workshops, which are short crash-courses that teach specific concepts or techniques. For example, in May 2017, OMBI led a workshop in bioinformatic methods relevant to 16S sequence data at Oregon State University. Over 40 scientists from across the Pacific Northwest region participated, including students, postdocs, and faculty. OMBI expects to host a related workshop in spring of 2019.
OMBI faculty periodically host interns during the summer session at OSU. For example, four undergraduate students from joined OMBI investigators in the Department of Statistics during the Summer of 2017 as part of a 1-year Research Experience for Undergraduates funded by the American Statistical Association. These students learned various statistical techniques for analyzing microbiome data alongside the biological concepts needed to interpret these data. Please inquire with the site administrator regarding similar opportunities in the future.
OMBI investigators rely on undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postdocs and visiting scientists, to accomplish their research objectives. If you have an interest in joining an OMBI lab to learn more about microbiome research, please contact specific OMBI investigators of interest.
OMBI faculty offer a variety of classes at OSU, both on-campus and online, that are relevant to microbiome research. A full list of such courses is currently in development.