The Human Microbiome. Present Status and Future Prospects

The relationship between microorganisms and human health is known since long time ago. Nowadays, we know that the human microbiota constitutes a vital importance part of our organism, with a decisive influence in general state of health and the development of certain diseases. New sequencing technologies have revolutionized this field, allowing to study genomes of a determined environment microorganisms, this is known as metagenomics.

In the last few years, there has been obtained substantial advances as a result of initiatives such as the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) in the USA and the European MetaHIT project, both initiatives are such ambitious as it was the Human Genome Project in the 90’s decade.

In the meeting, co-organized by B·Debate and the University of Vic - Central University of Catalonia (UVic-UCC), IrsiCaixa, the Vall d'Hebrón Research Institute (VHIR) and the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), there will be presented the most recent studies and theories, and it will be discussed about the future research lines in this ambit. They will count with the presence of international prestigious scientific leaders in a wide different range of aspects related to the microbiome study, such as medicine, health sciences, computational sciences, mathematics, among others.

Scientific Committee
Dr. M. Luz Calle, chair, (UVic-UCC); Dr. Peer Bork (EMBL); Dr. Bonaventura Clotet (IrsiCaixa); Dr. Francisco Guarner (VHIR); Dr. Núria Malats (CNIO);
Dr. Chaysavanh Manichanh (VHIR); Dr. Roger Paredes (IrsiCaixa); Dr. Joan Vendrell (URV) and Dr. Jordi Villà (UVic-UCC)