Grant: Canadian Microbiome Initiative - LOI

Recent work has implicated altered microbiota of the urogenital tract in susceptibility to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and urological cancers. Our multidisciplinary team will utilize emerging metagenomics, proteomics, and bioinformatics methods to study the makeup and dynamics of the microbial community living in the human urogenital tract and related fluids in health and disease. The research plan exploits existing human cohorts established to study progression of sexually transmitted infections and identification of biomarkers in bladder, kidney, prostate and testicular cancers. Prospective and longitudinal studies will be aimed at establishing baseline variation in the microbiome among individuals, comparing changes occurring over time in individuals with STD, and revealing microbial links to urological cancers and to cancer-relevant STD. These will be used to establish causality, improve diagnostics and prognosis, and develop novel therapeutic strategies.