Grant: Canadian Microbiome Initiative - LOI

Many chronic disorders are influenced by both genetic and environmental components. However, microbial discovery has not been prioritized for investigation due to expense, the high-risk nature of research and the intrinsic methodological difficulties with pathogen discovery. With the advent of cheaper next generation sequencing, metagenomic analysis has emerged as the method of choice for virus discovery. Our team has derived data to link viral infection with primary biliary cirrhosis and we have made inroads in describing new viral agents in other chronic liver and gastrointestinal diseases. Our goal is to find out whether other autoimmune, inflammatory and neoplastic diseases with no known cause are associated with viral infections. Our goal is to conduct metagenomic analyses by deep sequencing of various tissue compartments to document the presence of viral populations in healthy individuals and patients with chronic disease, with the aim of identifying disease related viruses.