Latest Skin flora Stories

NIH Human Microbiome Project finds patterns of microbial diversity, distributions earlier discovered in ocean ecosystems by scientists at MBL Woods Hole The landmark publication this week of a "map" of the bacterial make-up of healthy humans has deep roots in an unexpected place: the ocean. Microbial communities that live on and in the human body, known collectively as the microbiome, are thought to have a critical role in human health and disease. Five years ago, the National...

For the first time a consortium of researchers organized by the National Institutes of Health, including a University of Colorado Boulder professor, has mapped the normal microbial makeup of healthy humans. The team made up of 200 researchers from the Human Microbiome Project Consortium, or HMP, and based at 80 research institutions, reports that while nearly everyone carries pathogens -- which are microorganisms that cause illness -- pathogens cause no disease in healthy individuals....

The estimated 1,000 species of bacteria inhabiting healthy human skin are likely necessary for proper body functioning, researchers said. Bacterial colonies reside on different parts of the skin, some in the armpit and belly button, which are akin to tropical rain forests, and others on the forearm, which resembles an arid desert, researchers from the National Institutes of Health told the Los Angeles Times in a story published Saturday. We live in a microbial world, and these things are not...