Our collaborative team of researchers (Drs. Kieran O’Doherty, Rob Beiko, Sue Ishaq, Emma Allen-Vercoe, Mallory Choudoir, and Diego Silva – check out their biographies below) has been awarded funding from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) for a four-year project on how our collective microbiomes (the diverse microbes we share between humans and our environments) impact health!

We are seeking a suitable candidate for a post-doctoral fellowship to work on the concept of microbiome stewardship. This is a unique interdisciplinary opportunity to develop skills and a research profile across natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities scholarship. Microbiome stewardship is a new concept that combines:

• knowledge from microbiology about the importance of microbiomes for health and development of humans, other animals, and plants;
• knowledge from bioethics about the importance of developing ethical guidance and policy to ensure the health of humans and others;
• knowledge from the social sciences about public and stakeholder engagement to develop principles for microbiome stewardship that are informed by a broad set of perspectives and areas of expertise;
• recognition of the environmental determinants of health of microbiomes of organisms.

We require a highly accomplished individual to assist in developing a guiding framework for microbiome stewardship. This will involve conceptual work, networking with microbiome and other scientists, and strong project management skills.

Required skills for the position include: project management; high standard of writing. Preferred (not required) skills include: microbiology/microbiome science; social science methods (interviewing; focus groups); experience with policy.

Successful candidate should have a PhD in a discipline relevant to the needs of the project (e.g., public health; environmental science; microbiology; human geography; science & technology studies). It is not necessary that the candidate has expertise in all aspects of the project. For the initial phases of the project, we will favour applicants with expertise in the social sciences, policy development, or public health. However, individuals with expertise in other fields (for example, microbiology) are also encouraged to apply if they can demonstrate skills or experience in translating their knowledge into policy.

Location: Ideally, the position will be based at the University of Guelph (Canada); however, it is also possible to work from one of the other project sites in Canada or the USA (University of Maine; Dalhousie University; North Carolina State University). The position is supported by funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Starting date: negotiable with possibility to start immediately

Salary: dependent on candidate skill and experience

To apply, send an email to Kieran O’Doherty at odohertk@uoguelph.ca indicating your interest in the position. Please include a cv or resume; academic transcripts; publications or other writing samples (e.g., course papers; policy documents; research reports).

What is “microbiome stewardship”?

Microbiome stewardship is the broad idea that we need to consider ecosystem-level factors when we think about public health, as our environment, behaviors, and public policy affects interactions between microbes and human health. Microbiomes are highly dynamic systems, featuring bacteria, archaea, protozoa, fungi, and viruses; and our personal microbiomes are derived from a larger shared, collective microbial resource.

The importance of the human microbiome (the bacteria, fungi, archaea, protozoa, and viruses that we directly and indirectly interact with throughout our lives) for health and well-being has been well established. However, despite their demonstrated impact, there is limited information on the interconnectivity of non-host habitats (e.g., the built environment or other less intensively managed environments) and their collective contributions to human health. This includes interactions across scales such as with others in shared spaces, cultural and dietary practices, food systems and industrialized food processes, natural environments, built environments, and air pollution. 

The concept of the collective microbiome reinforces the idea of microbiomes as a public good from which all humans, plants, and animals derive benefit. Deterioration of the collective microbiome, and the increasing prevalence of microbiome dysbiosis in humans and elsewhere, is the least well-understood but the most-important facet of biodiversity loss and ecosystem health decline. Microbiome stewardship recognizes the necessity of microbial communities in sustaining human health, and emphasizes the imperative to protect them through policy and other action. Recognizing the importance of microbiome stewardship is a critical step, but we also lack the clear articulation needed to guide its implementation in policy and practice. We need a broadly applicable and inclusive definition of microbiome stewardship, a framework that can guide principles for implementation, and tools to assess microbiome health and to support informed decision making.

About the research team

Funding

“Articulating Microbiome Stewardship: Definition, Guiding Principles, Framework”

Principal Investigator: Kieran O’Doherty, University of Guelph

co-Principal Investigators: Rob Beiko, Dalhousie University; Suzanne Ishaq, University of Maine. 

co-Investigators: Emma Allen-Vercoe, University of Guelph; Mallory Choudoir, North Carolina State University; Diego Silva, The University of Sydney School of Public Health.

Funding agency: Canadian Institute for Health Research

Abstract

The human microbiome is essential for healthy human development and immunity, and maintaining its health is a collective activity. In Canada and worldwide, there is increasing prevalence of chronic illnesses attributed to dysbiosis of human microbiomes. The causes for microbiome dysbiosis vary. In part, the constitution of the human microbiome depends on genetic factors and personal lifestyle choices, such as diet and exercise. To a large extent, however, individuals’ and collective microbiomes are shaped by environmental factors including natural environments, built environments, food systems, air and other pollutants, and the microbiomes of other people and animals around us. Microbes, by their nature, are shared across humans, and between humans and the environments in which we live. Although our decisions as individuals may have some impact, it is mainly our actions as a society that shape macro-social influences such as environmental pollution, industrial food production, and guidelines for anti-biotic use, all of which profoundly affect human microbiomes. This suggests that we need a collective vision or principles that would act to coordinate and guide societal efforts to ensure healthy microbiome environments. In 2014 an interdisciplinary group of scholars proposed the concept of microbiome stewardship to recognise our shared microbial environment as a common good that needs to be protected. Although this was an important first step, the notion of microbiome stewardship needs to be developed in much more detail to be useful in guiding policy and practice. The purpose of this project is to develop an authoritative definition of microbiome stewardship, to develop guiding principles for its implementation, and to develop a framework for its assessment. We will use a series of interviews, workshops, and deliberative processes to engage a wide range of experts and stakeholders to develop a sustainable and comprehensive articulation of microbiome stewardship.