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René Dubos, the Autochthonous Flora, and the Discovery of the Microbiome

Now characterised by high-throughput sequencing methods that enable the study of microbes without lab culture, the human “microbiome” (the microbial flora of the body) is said to have revolutionary implications for biology and medicine. According to many experts, we must now understand ourselves as...

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Autor principal: Rasmussen, Nicolas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Netherlands 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9668787/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36348188
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10739-022-09692-7
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author Rasmussen, Nicolas
author_facet Rasmussen, Nicolas
author_sort Rasmussen, Nicolas
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description Now characterised by high-throughput sequencing methods that enable the study of microbes without lab culture, the human “microbiome” (the microbial flora of the body) is said to have revolutionary implications for biology and medicine. According to many experts, we must now understand ourselves as “holobionts” like lichen or coral, multispecies superorganisms that consist of animal and symbiotic microbes in combination, because normal physiological function depends on them. Here I explore the 1960s research of biologist René Dubos, a forerunner figure mentioned in some historical accounts of the microbiome, and argue that he arrived at the superorganism concept 40 years before the Human Microbiome Project. This raises the question of why his contribution was not hailed as revolutionary at the time and why Dubos is not remembered for it.
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spelling pubmed-96687872022-11-18 René Dubos, the Autochthonous Flora, and the Discovery of the Microbiome Rasmussen, Nicolas J Hist Biol Original Research Now characterised by high-throughput sequencing methods that enable the study of microbes without lab culture, the human “microbiome” (the microbial flora of the body) is said to have revolutionary implications for biology and medicine. According to many experts, we must now understand ourselves as “holobionts” like lichen or coral, multispecies superorganisms that consist of animal and symbiotic microbes in combination, because normal physiological function depends on them. Here I explore the 1960s research of biologist René Dubos, a forerunner figure mentioned in some historical accounts of the microbiome, and argue that he arrived at the superorganism concept 40 years before the Human Microbiome Project. This raises the question of why his contribution was not hailed as revolutionary at the time and why Dubos is not remembered for it. Springer Netherlands 2022-11-08 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC9668787/ /pubmed/36348188 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10739-022-09692-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Original Research
Rasmussen, Nicolas
René Dubos, the Autochthonous Flora, and the Discovery of the Microbiome
title René Dubos, the Autochthonous Flora, and the Discovery of the Microbiome
title_full René Dubos, the Autochthonous Flora, and the Discovery of the Microbiome
title_fullStr René Dubos, the Autochthonous Flora, and the Discovery of the Microbiome
title_full_unstemmed René Dubos, the Autochthonous Flora, and the Discovery of the Microbiome
title_short René Dubos, the Autochthonous Flora, and the Discovery of the Microbiome
title_sort rené dubos, the autochthonous flora, and the discovery of the microbiome
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9668787/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36348188
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10739-022-09692-7
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