Free e-Training on the Microbiome, Anyone?

Are you also curious about the microbiome ? Then you may be interested in free learning opportunities offered by online platforms, at your own rhythm, like the one I followed recently, the iMooX on Microbiome and Health.

I just discovered its existence but it was released in 2021 by Graz University of Technology, so it's not brand-new information, but as an introductory understanding to the microbiome and related topics, it's still up-to-date and very accessible in terms of time investment.

This course is organized in 6 units, each estimated to require a couple of hours, but they can easily be completed in less time. Units are composed of 2-3 videos of 10 minutes and a quizz to earn a completion certificate. You can also download the transcripts (5-7 pages read per unit). If you pause the videos to grab some notes, you can account for about 1 hour per unit.

Who is it for?

This MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) provides introductory knowledge on microbes for multiple disciplines ranging from medicine to agriculture, food science, bioeconomy, and informatics. The platform doesn't specify who it was created for, and my take would be anyone with interest in understanding the microbiome and its relation to One Health with a basic training in Biology. If you're not familiar with what DNA, RNA, proteins and enzymes are, it may be difficult to understand and grab the difference between the different -omics, mechanisms and implications of gene transfer, for example.

Who could benefit most from the course, I believe, are policy-makers, who are not necessarily trained in these topics and should really know about these rich microbial links between food systems, human health, environmental health, antibiotic resistance - in short, One Health.

It may not teach much to researchers or professionals in the microbiome space, but it can open their scope to consider others microbiomes than the one they study and how they integrate in a bigger picture.

What does it teach?

The course is organized around the following units:

1. Introduction

Definitions around the microbiota and microbiome, what belongs and what doesn't, and key concepts like eubiosis, dysbiosis and exposome.

2. Techniques and Methods

To better understand how research is conducted, the advantages and limitations of culturomics, metabarcoding, metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics, metabolomics, and the interest of their association.

3. The Plant Microbiome

Plant physiology is utterly incomplete if it doesn't take into account its exchanges with mycorrhizal fungi and bacteria. Plants are holobionts and their microbiome is involved in many functions like nutrient supply, support during germination and growth, resistance against infection, and resilience versus abiotic stress.

"Plants can, based on individual needs, select microbes from the environment."

Plants and their microbes have co-evolved, and healthy plants host a diverse and abundant microbiota within their different organs. And like any species, plants provide to their offspring - the seeds - not only nutrients and vitamins, but also microbes.

"The microbiome is one of the most promising solutions to increase agricultural productivity while protecting environmental health."

4. The Human Microbiome

With a few facts, the lesson covers most of the main aspects about the human microbiome - with key figures and how it is transmitted, how, like plants, we have co-evolved with our microbes, and how they are related to health, disease, and efficient food digestion.

"Scientists calculted that without our microbes, we would have to eat 5 times the amount of food in order to get the same nutritional value."

In this session we have access to the game Tiny Biomes where we can decode each lifestyle choice in the light of its impact on the microbiome. Minus point: you're not free to make all the choices you'd like. While you're pregnant, they make you pick between cigarettes and donuts... Plus point: detailed explainations and scientific references behind each point. Try it, it just takes a few minutes!

5. Exposome and Resistome

Antimicrobial resistance exists with different mechanisms (efflux pumps, enzymatic inactivation, and target alteration) and includes antibiotic resistance but also natural buildup of resistance. We review the WHO top 12 critical pathogens, and the mechanisms by which resistance emerges. About 70% of antibiotics are used in livestock farming, and they can impact the resistomes including in natural environments.

The exposome in turn is everything an individual is exposed to during their lifetime, and it explains 70% of immune-related diseases.

When we can't live in the countryside, we can still make choices that support our microbiome diversity: bring in house plants, spend time in nature and parks...

6. Microbiome Research for Planetary Health and SDGs

As we navigate the Anthropocene and clench our teeth at each passing of the planetary boundaries and species extinction, attunement to microbial life helps make sense of the interconnectedness of all living systems. As a species wilts, so do its specific symbionts.

But microbes are also part of the solutions to our civilization challenges.

"Microbes offer such an array of options and in terms of their diversity and functions they might be the last resort option we can count on for reversing the impact of industralization, intensive agriculture, and human overpopulation."

Indeed, microbes have a key role to play in many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In SDG2, Zero Hunger, as microbes can be used as high-quality foods (see this previous blog on Monbiot's position on eating microbes), and to support the fertility and nutrition of crops.

"Agricultural products based on the microbiome are one of the fastest growing sectors in agronomy with a CAGR of 15-18% and a predicted value of over 10 billion USD by 2025."

In SDG3, Good Health and Wellbeing, biotics can play a role as food supplements, live biotherapeutic products (bugs as drugs) and fecal microbial transplants. Microbes are also used for bioremediation. For the same reason, they are used for Clean Water and Sanitation, SDG6. Microbes help produce biofuels and can thus contribute to SDG7, Affordable and Clean Energy. Because the bioeconomy is very dynamic, microbes support SDG8, Decent Work and Economic Growth. And because of their key role in the carbon cycle, they are possibly the main determinant of Climate Action, SDG13.

Indeed, microbiomes interconnect all life on Earth and are a key in managing sustainability.

Why I Recommend it

I loved that this course was not centered around the human microbiome and health, but rather how the different microbiomes work and interact, and on Planetary Health as a result.

"The grand vision of applied microbiome research is to improve health of humans, animals, plants, and whole ecosystems."

Further Learning Opportunities

There are other courses probably more renowned and more recent than this iMooX, like edX The Human Microbiome or Coursera on the gut microbiome: L'examen des intestins : Explorer votre microbiome | Coursera but I haven't been through these programs.

If you are interested in the soil microbiome, Biome Makers' BeCrop Adviser program offers nice free contents - I'll share a digest on those in an upcoming newsletter. If you have other resources to recommend, please let me know!

PS: this note goes beyond the microbiome altogether, but I can't finish this blog without mentioning the most impactful e-course I've ever followed : Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet. The wisdom vehiculated in this course is genuinely healing for people who suffer from ecoanxiety and wonder how they can be of help in this burning, flooding world - with or without microbes.