Grant: Canadian Microbiome Initiative - LOI

Within a healthy human body, there exist many microbial communities that play an important role in our health. Disruptions to these microbial ecosystems can result in profound consequences. For example, if the microbial community of the vagina is perturbed, it can result in enhanced acquisition of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility, early pregnancy loss, and localized infections that significantly impact quality of life. To understand the vaginal microbes and how they can modulate women's health and diseases, we need to identify and characterize microbes involved in these processes. Traditionally, identification of microbes from the vagina is performed using laboratory tests which lack both accuracy and sensitivity. Today, with the advent of new DNA sequencing technologies in biomedical research, this can be achieved by genome-wide and metagenomic approaches, which allow analysis of genetic materials derived from complete microbial communities harvested from their natural environments. Our team will use a new DNA sequencing technology that we have developed, pyrosequencing of the chaperonin 60 gene, to identify individual types of microbes in the woman's genital tract. We will collect vaginal samples from both healthy women and women with a variety of health issues and perform analysis of these samples by pyrosequencing and bioinformatics tools. We will be able to examine and identify comprehensively the microorganisms living in the female genital tract with great accuracy. The data collected will no doubt help us to identify and characterize microbes that are related to women's health and provide us information to develop potentially new treatments and therapies that can be either preventive or reactive to women's diseases.