RSA Module File and Workings

RSA Human By Nature Jake Goodall & Joe Samson Hill Designed Module File.

Professional practise in graphic design

25-09 / 29-09

pulling choose a brief and pick a partner. pheromones included.

Starting Out. After going through all the briefs and hearing what they all have to say - I wasn’t necessarily inclined towards any individual one in particular, other than that the motion one didn’t interest me as much as some of the others. I was looking at the Human by Nature brief when Joe approached me, and as Joe is someone I never worked with before I thought it would be good to team up. From what I’ve seen of his work he can be quite a conceptual thinker, which is something I quite want to see be explored with this project. I am excited to see where our ideas go and how our different styles of work take us - as I’m quite keen to see where we can go with this.

Eden project - here I come.

Notes - Body is an ecosystem

- Contribution to yourself

- Life / Work / Living - Health & Sustainability

- Lots of links to (the Daily Diet) brief

- Balance - Aging population?

- Affects every age range

- Question Medicine.

It almost seemed to be like one of those dating events where everyone was going around the room, asking each other whether they were interested. Hence the Pulling.

25-09 / 29-09 Design a means of encouraging people to take care of their own

Design a means of encouraging people to take care of their own

human microbiome (the community of beneficial microbes that live

human microbiome (the community of beneficial microbes that live

inside our bodies).

inside our bodies).

Challenge and scope

Challenge and scope

Our body is a community containing many trillions of useful

Our body is a community containing many trillions of useful

microbes which all work together to keep us healthy (forming,

microbes which all work together to keep us healthy (forming,

feeding and defending us). We are an ecosystem in the same way

feeding and defending us). We are an ecosystem in the same way

as a rainforest is. How does our ‘microbiome’ work? What happens

as a rainforest is. How does our ‘microbiome’ work? What happens

when it goes out of balance? How can we help to keep it in balance?

when it goes out of balance? How can we help to keep it in balance?

How can we apply these lessons to the planet we live on as well as the

How can we apply these lessons to the planet we live on as well as the

world within us?

world within us?

In our bodies bacterial cells outnumber our cells 10:1. We are

In our bodies bacterial cells outnumber our cells 10:1. We are

not individuals, we are ecosystems. Popular understanding that

not individuals, we are ecosystems. Popular understanding that

microbes cause illness is changing. We need them. They also

microbes cause illness is changing. We need them. They also

regulate our bodies, help prevent diseases and disorders, even affect

regulate our bodies, help prevent diseases and disorders, even affect

mood and personality. These new biomedical discoveries could

mood and personality. These new biomedical discoveries could

influence how we look at health, nutrition, medicines and our

influence how we look at health, nutrition, medicines and our

lifestyle decisions in the future.

lifestyle decisions in the future.

Examples of how to look after your microbiome include:

Examples of how to look after your microbiome include:

»» nutrition and a balanced diet - what you eat affects your microbe communities too »» probiotics, prebiotics and synbiotics - microbe-rich foods which could help our microbiome

»» nutrition and a balanced diet - what you eat affects your microbe communities too »» probiotics, prebiotics and synbiotics - microbe-rich foods which could help our microbiome

»» wellbeing – get enough sleep, keep calm, don’t get stressed

»» wellbeing – get enough sleep, keep calm, don’t get stressed

»» exercise – take in oxygen, burn off calories

»» exercise – take in oxygen, burn off calories

»» interact with the outside: the environment is full of microbes,

»» interact with the outside: the environment is full of microbes,

most of which are good for you

most of which are good for you

»» This brief asks you to think about the future of the planet,

»» This brief asks you to think about the future of the planet,

the future of human health, how these are intertwined and

the future of human health, how these are intertwined and

consequently, how we can best nurture our own microbiomes for

consequently, how we can best nurture our own microbiomes for

optimum health and sustainability.

optimum health and sustainability.

For the purposes of illustration, the following would all be

For the purposes of illustration, the following would all be

viable responses:

viable responses:

»» services and / or systems that helps people take care of their microbe community

»» services and / or systems that helps people take care of their microbe community

»» a campaign to change people’s perception about microbes

»» a campaign to change people’s perception about microbes

»» products that promote a healthy microbiome diet (eg. pro and pre

»» products that promote a healthy microbiome diet (eg. pro and pre

biotics, fermented foods etc)

biotics, fermented foods etc)

»» creating ‘good microbe’ friendly spaces or environments

»» creating ‘good microbe’ friendly spaces or environments

»» a game that encourages outdoor activities and healthy eating

»» a game that encourages outdoor activities and healthy eating

»» explore scenarios that imagine the future of health

»» explore scenarios that imagine the future of health

»» ... and many others are possible

»» ... and many others are possible

human by nature Dissecting the brief

29-09

toolkit initial research

The first task was to get our heads wrapped around what exactly a microbe and a microbiome was. Our first steps were to dissect the brief and see what stood out to us, on the previous spread is a version of the brief where I blocked out everything that I didn’t think were the most important aspects. In a way this let me then focus on what I needed to, and streamline where we’re going from here and how it relates back to the brief.

We then headed straight to the toolkit supplied by the RSA and tried to digest some of what was there, as well as looking at wikipedia.

Some of the articles really stood out to us, as well as some of the TED talks and other videos we found whilst researching online. We were taking notes on how we could explain it to people - in a really “dumbed down” way without it sounding patronising. We were also looking into what exactly this system is and why it takes place, for example what the role of say a pathogen is and how it affects your microbiome.

Most of these articles were saying the same thing in multiple ways, and we had to take all the information it was presenting and find a way to make it accessible to the general public, which was daunting.

Over the next few pages are the articles and what we pulled from them, as a starting point for our investigation.

Also less than a month to hand-in. Crazy-fast project.

01-10

Breathe in. Feel the air pass through your nostrils and move into your nose. Your diaphragm contracts, pulling the air deep into your chest.

National Geographic

Oxygen floods into tiny cavities in your lungs and travels into your capillaries, ready to fuel every cell in your body. You’re alive.

So is that breath you just took. When we inhale, our nostrils capture millions of invisible particles: dust, pollen, sea spray, volcanic ash, plant spores. These specks in turn host a teeming community of bacteria and viruses. A few types may trigger allergies or asthma. Far more rare are inhaled pathogens that are themselves the agents of diseases, such as SARS, tuberculosis, and influenza.

Over the past 15 years I’ve spent a lot of time poking cotton swabs up

Many airborne microbes haven’t come from very far away, but some have traveled enormous distances.

Dust from deserts in China moves across the Pacific to North America and east to Europe, eventually circling the globe. Such dust clouds harbor bacteria and viruses from the soils where they originated, as well as other microbes they pick up from the smoke of garbage fires or from the mist above the oceans they cross. Take a breath, and you sample the world.

human noses, pig snouts, bird beaks, and primate proboscises, looking for signs of such agents before they cause deadly pandemics. As a result, I’ve come to think of air as the medium for the next pandemic rather than the means to sustain life. But breathe easy: Most of the microbes in the air do us little or no harm, and some almost certainly do us good.

The truth is, we still understand precious little about them.

We have known about bacteria, which make up much of the mass of life on Earth, only since Antoni van Leeuwenhoek began training his microscopes on samples of pond water and saliva some 350 years ago. Viruses—much smaller than bacteria but far more numerous than all other life-forms combined—were discovered not much more than a century ago, when people were already driving around in automobiles. And it is only in the past few decades that we have come to realize how ubiquitous microbes are, flourishing from the tops of clouds to miles below the Earth’s surface. We’ve just begun to understand how vital they are to our health and to the health of the Earth. We pride ourselves on having explored nearly every corner of this planet, but behind our world is a shadow world of microbes—and they are often calling the shots.

Our past ignorance of the microbial abundance on the planet stemmed in large part from our inability to grow most microorganisms in the laboratory. Lately DNA sequencing techniques have allowed us to study whole populations in a given environment without the need to culture any of them in a petri dish. In 2006, for instance, scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announced that air samples collected from San Antonio and Austin, Texas, harbored at least 1,800 distinct species of airborne bacteria, putting the richness of air in the same league as that of soil. Among them were bacteria from hayfields, sewage plants, hot springs, and human gums, as well as the oddly common bacteria found in deteriorating paint.

Many airborne microbes haven’t come from very far away, but some have traveled enormous distances. Dust from deserts in China moves across the Pacific to North America and east to Europe, eventually circling the globe. Such dust clouds harbor bacteria and viruses from the soils where they originated, as well as other microbes they pick up from the smoke of garbage fires or from the mist above the oceans they cross. Take a breath, and you sample the world.

Above the air we breathe, the upper atmosphere also contains

microbes, floating as high as 22 miles above Earth’s surface. I believe

johnsonii, which normally lives in the gut and helps us digest milk,

they could go even higher, though it’s hard to imagine they could live

becomes more abundant in the vagina, exposing the baby to the

long so far from water and nutrients. Lower down, they appear to

bacterium, perhaps to help prepare the way for digesting breast milk.

survive and even thrive. There is evidence that despite high levels of ultraviolet radiation that would kill most bacteria, some metabolize and

Our bodies also host some pretty shifty characters. At any one time

perhaps even reproduce inside clouds. In fact they may play a part in

about a third of us harbor in our nostrils Staphylococcus aureus,

the formation of snowflakes that require a nucleator, or small particle, to

a normally benign bacterium that can turn virulent. Usually

crystallize around. In 2008 Brent Christner of Louisiana State University

competition from other members of the nostril community appears

and his colleagues showed that microorganisms were the most efficient ice

to keep this bacterium under control. But S. aureus can get nasty,

nucleators present in snow. That’s right—snow is literally alive.

especially when it ventures into other environments. In the skin it can cause everything from an occasional pimple to a life-threatening

Microbes don’t just inhabit the air—they created it, or at least the part

infection. Under certain conditions, the individual bacteria coalesce

we most depend upon. When life began on Earth, the atmosphere had

into a filmy mass that acts as a united front, invading new tissues and

no significant oxygen. Oxygen is a waste product of photosynthesis,

even infecting intravenous catheters and other hospital equipment.

and we owe the invention of that process, about two and a half billion

Superbug strains of S. aureus can cause lethal infections such as toxic

years ago, to cyanobacteria. These bacteria are directly responsible

shock syndrome or necrotizing fasciitis—flesh-eating disease.

for as much as half of the oxygen made on Earth each year and indirectly for most of the rest. Hundreds of millions of years ago

What makes these strains so dangerous is their resistance to

ancient forms of cyanobacteria made their way into cells that would

antibiotics, those miracles of modern medicine that since the middle

evolve to become plants. Once embedded in those ancestor plants,

of the past century have saved millions of lives. The more we learn

they evolved into chloroplasts, the photosynthetic, oxygen-producing

about our microbiota, however, the more we realize how easy it is for

engines of plant cells. Together, free-living cyanobacteria and their

helpful microbes to get caught in the line of fire between an antibiotic

long-lost chloroplast cousins in plants carry out the vast majority of

and its intended target. Some 10 to 40 percent of children who are

photosynthesis on our planet.

given a broad-spectrum antibiotic develop antibiotic-associated

E L P M A S , H T A E R D B L A R O E K W TA THE

diarrhea, because their gut microbiota have been disturbed.

But let’s get back to your nose. Those airborne microbes you

unwittingly inhaled? They’re just passing through. Your nasal

The widespread use of antibiotics early in life may have more

passages also host a rich and complicated population of full-time

profound effects over time. The stomach microbe Helicobacter pylori

residents. Three genera—Corynebacterium, Propionibacterium, and

has long been known to provoke ulcers in some people but in most

Staphylococcus—account for most of the bacteria in your nostrils.

serves the useful function of regulating immune cells in the stomach.

They form one community among the many that make up the human

Martin Blaser, a microbiologist at New York University who has

microbiome: the full genetic complement of bacteria and other

studied H. pylori for decades, notes that an ever shrinking share of

organisms at home on your skin, gums, and teeth, in your genital

adults is populated with the microbe, partly because of repeated high

tract, and especially in your gut.

doses of antibiotics during childhood. Blaser believes the diminished presence of the bacteria and the rise in asthma in American youth

All told, the microbes in your body outnumber your own cells by ten

might be related.

to one and can weigh as much as or more than your brain—about three pounds in an average adult. Each of us is thus both an organism

So should we treat our wheezing children with a healthy dose of H.

and a densely populated ecosystem, with habitats harboring species as

pylori? It’s often more complicated than that. As we learn more about

different from one another as the animals in a jungle and a desert. Even

the relationships between ourselves and our microbes—and their own

the resident microbes in the gum pockets around your teeth can vary

complex relationships with one another—scientists are coming to see

greatly, suggesting, as David Relman of Stanford University puts it, that

the microbiome the way ecologists have long viewed an ecosystem:

“each of our teeth is essentially an island, rocks in an intertidal pool.”

not as a collection of species but as a dynamic environment, defined by the multitude of interactions among its constituents. This should

For the most part, the microbes inhabiting our bodies are either

mean greater care in the use of antibiotics and, increasingly, targeted

beneficial ones or unobtrusive freeloaders. They help us digest our

probiotic treatments that don’t just temporarily boost the numbers

food and absorb nutrients. They manufacture vital vitamins and anti-

of one microbe or another but that shore up the whole population so

inflammatory proteins that our own genes cannot produce, and they

that our health is improved. “We know how to disturb a community,”

train our immune systems to combat infectious intruders. Resident

says Katherine Lemon, a microbiome researcher at the Forsyth

bacteria on our skin secrete a sort of natural moisturizer, preventing

Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a clinician at Boston

cracks that could allow pathogens to penetrate.

Children’s Hospital. “What we need to learn is how to coax it back into a healthy state.”

We get our first dose of these microbial coconspirators as we pass through our mother’s vaginal canal, where the bacterial population changes dramatically during pregnancy. For instance, Lactobacillus

This article continues.

01-10

Your body is home to about 100 trillion bacteria and other microbes, collectively known as your microbiome. Naturalists first became aware of our invisible lodgers in the 1600s, but it wasn’t

New york times

until the past few years that we’ve become really familiar with them.

This recent research has given the microbiome a cuddly kind of fame. We’ve come to appreciate how beneficial our microbes are — breaking down our food, fighting off infections and nurturing our immune system. It’s a lovely, invisible garden we should be tending for our own well-being.

But in the journal Bioessays, a team of scientists has raised a creepier possibility. Perhaps our menagerie of germs is also

A number of recent studies have shown that

influencing our behavior in order to advance its own evolutionary success — giving us cravings for certain foods, for example.

gut bacteria can use these signals to alter the

Maybe the microbiome is our puppet master.

biochemistry of the brain. Compared with ordinary

A highly magnified view of Enterococcus faecalis, a bacterium

mice, those raised free of germs behave differently in a number of ways. They are more anxious, for example, and have impaired memory.

that lives in the human gut. Microbes may affect our cravings, new research suggests. Credit Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The idea that a simple organism could control a complex animal may sound like science fiction. In fact, there are many welldocumented examples of parasites controlling their hosts.

Some species of fungi, for example, infiltrate the brains of ants and coax them to climb plants and clamp onto the underside of leaves.

The fungi then sprout out of the ants and send spores showering onto uninfected ants below.

How parasites control their hosts remains mysterious. But it looks as if they release molecules that directly or indirectly can influence their brains.

Our microbiome has the biochemical potential to do the same thing. In our guts, bacteria make some of the same chemicals that our neurons use to communicate with one another, such as dopamine and serotonin. And the microbes can deliver these neurological molecules to the dense web of nerve endings that line the gastrointestinal tract.

A number of recent studies have shown that gut bacteria can use these signals to alter the biochemistry of the brain. Compared with ordinary mice, those raised free of germs behave differently in a number of ways. They are more anxious, for example, and have impaired memory.

Adding certain species of bacteria to a normal mouse’s microbiome can reveal other ways in which they can influence behavior. Some bacteria lower stress levels in the mouse. When scientists sever the nerve relaying signals from the gut to the brain, this stress-reducing effect disappears.

Some experiments suggest that bacteria also can influence the way

their hosts eat. Germ-free mice develop more receptors for sweet

effects on behavior was “still in its early stages.”

flavors in their intestines, for example. They also prefer to drink sweeter drinks than normal mice do.

The most important thing to do now, Dr. Knight and other scientists said, was to run experiments to see if microbes really are

Scientists have also found that bacteria can alter levels of hormones

manipulating us.

that govern appetite in mice.

Mark Lyte, a microbiologist at the Texas Tech University Health Dr. Maley and his colleagues argue that our eating habits create a

Sciences Center who pioneered this line of research in the 1990s,

strong motive for microbes to manipulate us. “From the microbe’s

is now conducting some of those experiments. He’s investigating

perspective, what we eat is a matter of life and death,” Dr. Maley said.

whether particular species of bacteria can change the preferences mice have for certain foods.

Different species of microbes thrive on different kinds of food. If they can prompt us to eat more of the food they depend on, they

“This is not a for-sure thing,” Dr. Lyte said. “It needs scientific,

g n i d n o b l a e i h c t o s r y t o a f a Th s good ut it m e i als. B or th f m d m a m o be goo ria. e s t l c a ba

can multiply.

Microbial manipulations might fill in some of the puzzling holes in our understandings about food cravings, Dr. Maley said. Scientists have tried to explain food cravings as the body’s way to build up a supply of nutrients after deprivation, or as addictions, much like those for drugs like tobacco and cocaine.

But both explanations fall short. Take chocolate: Many people crave it fiercely, but it isn’t an essential nutrient. And chocolate doesn’t

drive people to increase their dose to get the same high. “You don’t need more chocolate at every sitting to enjoy it,” Dr. Maley said.

Perhaps, he suggests, the certain kinds of bacteria that thrive on chocolate are coaxing us to feed them.

John F. Cryan, a neuroscientist at University College Cork in Ireland who was not involved in the new study, suggested that microbes

might also manipulate us in ways that benefited both them and us.

“It’s probably not a simple parasitic scenario,” he said.

Research by Dr. Cryan and others suggests that a healthy

microbiome helps mammals develop socially. Germ-free mice, for example, tend to avoid contact with other mice.

That social bonding is good for the mammals. But it may also be good for the bacteria.

“When mammals are in social groups, they’re more likely to pass on microbes from one to the other,” Dr. Cryan said.

“I think it’s a very interesting and compelling idea,” said Rob Knight, a microbiologist at the University of Colorado, who was also not involved in the new study.

If microbes do in fact manipulate us, Dr. Knight said, we might be able to manipulate them for our own benefit — for example, by eating yogurt laced with bacteria that would make us crave healthy foods.

“It would obviously be of tremendous practical importance,” Dr. Knight said. But he warned that research on the microbiome’s

hard-core demonstration.”

The economist

01-10

For in the nooks and crannies of every human being, and especially in his or her guts, dwells the microbiome: 100 trillion bacteria of several hundred species bearing 3m non-human genes.

The biological Robespierres believe these should count, too; that humans are not single organisms, but superorganisms made up of lots of smaller organisms working together.

Political revolutionaries turn the world upside down. Scientific ones

activities of human cells. If these signals go wrong, disease is the

more often turn it inside out. And that, almost literally, is happening

consequence. This matters because it suggests doctors have been

to the idea of what, biologically speaking, a human being is.

looking in the wrong place for explanations of these diseases. It also suggests a whole new avenue for treatment. If an upset microbiome

The traditional view is that a human body is a collection of 10 trillion

causes illness, settling it down might effect a cure.

cells which are themselves the products of 23,000 genes. If the revolutionaries are correct, these numbers radically underestimate

Yogurt companies and health-food fanatics have been banging this

the truth. For in the nooks and crannies of every human being, and

drum for years. And in the case of at least one malady, irritable-bowel

especially in his or her guts, dwells the microbiome: 100 trillion

syndrome, they are right. So-called probiotics, a mixture of about

bacteria of several hundred species bearing 3m non-human genes.

half a dozen bacterial species found in yogurt, do act to calm this

The biological Robespierres believe these should count, too; that

condition. But there is little evidence that consuming probiotics has

humans are not single organisms, but superorganisms made up of lots

the tonic effect on healthy people that certain adverts suggest.

of smaller organisms working together.

t s o m e r a o g s k y e n i h l t e n s e e h Th ible w ng o r vi s w

A handful of doctors are taking a more fundamental

It might sound perverse to claim bacterial cells and genes as part

approach to another microbiome-related disease,

of the body, but the revolutionary case is a good one. For the bugs

infection with Clostridium difficile. This bacterium,

are neither parasites nor passengers. They are, rather, fully paid-up

which causes life-threatening distension of the gut in

members of a community of which the human “host” is but a single

some people who have been treated with antibiotics

(if dominating) member. This view is increasingly popular: the world’s

and thus had their microbiomes disrupted, is a bane

leading scientific journals, Nature and Science, have both reviewed

of hospitals. It kills 14,000 people a year in America

it extensively in recent months. It is also important: it will help the

alone. But recent experiments have shown it can be

science and practice of medicine (see article).

eliminated by introducing, as an enema, the faeces of a healthy individual. “Stool transplants” are a pretty

The microbiome does many jobs in exchange for the raw materials

crude approach, to be sure, but the crucial point is that

and shelter its host provides. One is to feed people more than 10%

microbes are much easier to manipulate than human

of their daily calories. These are derived from plant carbohydrates

cells. For all the talk of superorganisms (and despite

that human enzymes are unable to break down. And not just plant

the yuck factor of what is being moved from one body to

carbohydrates. Mother’s milk contains carbohydrates called glycans

another), transplanting a microbiome is far easier than

which human enzymes cannot digest, but bacterial ones can.

transplanting a heart or a kidney.

This alone shows how closely host and microbiome have co-evolved

Two other areas look promising. One is more sophisticated

over the years. But digestion is not the only nutritional service

deployment of the humble antibiotic, arguably the pharma industry’s

provided. The microbiome also makes vitamins, notably B2, B12 and

most effective invention. At the moment antibiotics are used mainly

folic acid. It is, moreover, capable of adjusting its output to its host’s

to kill infections. In the future they might have a more subtle use—to

needs and diet. The microbiomes of babies make more folic acid than

manipulate the mix of bugs within a human, so that good bugs spread

do those of adults. And microbiomes in vitamin-hungry places like

at the expense of bad ones.

Malawi and rural Venezuela turn out more of these chemicals than do those in the guts of North Americans.

The other field that may be changed is genetics. Many of the diseases in which the microbiome is implicated seem

The microbiome also maintains the host’s health by keeping hostile

to run in families. In some, such as heart disease, that is

interlopers at bay. An alien bug that causes diarrhoea, for instance,

partly explained by known human genes. In a lot, though,

is as much an enemy of the microbiome as of the host. Both have

most notably autism, the genetic link is obscure. This may

an interest in zapping it. And both contribute to the task. Host and

be because geneticists have been looking at the wrong set

microbiome, then, are allies. But there is more to it than that. For

of genes—the 23,000 rather than the 3m. For those 3m are

the latest research shows their physiologies are linked in ways which

still inherited. They are largely picked up from your mother

make the idea of a human superorganism more than just a rhetorical

during the messy process of birth. Though no clear example

flourish.

is yet known, it is possible that particular disease-inducing strains are being passed down the generations in this way.

These links are most visible when they go wrong. A disrupted microbiome has been associated with a lengthening list of problems:

As with all such upheavals, it is unclear where the microbiome

obesity and its opposite, malnutrition; diabetes (both type-1 and type-

revolution will end up. Doctors and biologists may truly come to think

2); atherosclerosis and heart disease; multiple sclerosis; asthma and

of people as superorganisms. Then again, they may not. What is clear,

eczema; liver disease; numerous diseases of the intestines, including

though, is that turning thinking inside out in this way is yielding new

bowel cancer; and autism. The details are often obscure, but in some

insights into seemingly intractable medical problems, and there is a

cases it looks as if bugs are making molecules that help regulate the

good chance cures will follow. Vive la révolution!

01-10

The human body is teeming with microbes—trillions of them. The commensal bacteria and fungi that live on and inside us outnumber our own cells 10-to-1, and the viruses that teem inside those cells

The Scientist

and ours may add another order of magnitude. Genetic analyses of samples from different body regions have revealed the diverse and dynamic communities of microbes that inhabit not just the gut and areas directly exposed to the outside world, but also parts of the body that were long assumed to be microbe-free, such as the placenta, which turns out to harbor bacteria most closely akin to those in the mouth. The mouth microbiome is also suspected of influencing bacterial communities in the lungs. Researchers are also examining the basic biology of the microbiomes of the penis, the vagina, and the skin.

Altogether, the members of the human body’s microbial ecosystem make up anywhere from two to six pounds of a 200-pound adult’s total body weight.

THE BODY’S MICROBIOMES: Genomic surveys of the body’s bacterial, fungal, and viral inhabitants are revealing diverse microbial communities that likely play key roles in human health and disease.

“No tissue in the human body is sterile, including reproductive tissues and, for that matter, the unborn child,” Seth Bordenstein, a biologist at Vanderbilt University, says in an e-mail to The Scientist.

Altogether, the members of the human body’s microbial ecosystem make up anywhere from two to six pounds of a 200-pound adult’s total body weight, according to estimates from the Human Microbiome Project, launched in 2007 by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The gastrointestinal tract is home to an overwhelming majority of these microbes, and, correspondingly, has attracted the most interest from the research community. But scientists are learning ever more about the microbiomes that inhabit parts of the body outside the gut, and they’re finding that these communities are likely just as important. Strong patterns, along with high diversity and variation across and within individuals, are recurring themes in microbiome research. While surveys of the body’s microbial communities continue, the field is also entering a second stage of inquiry: a quest to understand how the human microbiome promotes health or permits disease.

“None of us in the field—and this is true for the gut, this is true for the skin—none of us can actually tell how our experimental observations really relate to human disease, but we’re getting closer to mechanistic insights,” says immunologist Yasmine Belkaid, chief of mucosal immunology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.

The late zoologist Charles Atwood Kofoid couldn’t possibly have known that he and his University of California, Berkeley, colleagues had begun to chip away at the human oral microbiome when, in 1929, they described in the Journal of the American Dental Association “animal parasites of the mouth and their relation to dental disease.” Scientists studying periodontal diseases have for decades realized that certain pathogenic bacteria contribute to inflammation and the eventual destruction of tissues within the oral cavity. But it’s now recognized that the mouth is populated with commensal microbes, too, and that these typically benign bacteria

can contribute to a person’s health beyond their gums, tongue, and

targeted ways to prevent harmful growth.

—Tracy Vence

teeth.

If the human digestive tract were a river extending from the mouth Exploring the composition of the mouth microbiome is not

through the stomach and intestines, the lungs would be adjacent

without its challenges, however. “The whole world passes through

pools that are fed by the current, according to Gary Huffnagle

the oral cavity,” says Purnima Kumar, an assistant professor of

of the University of Michigan who began studying the bacterial

periodontology at Ohio State University College of Dentistry. “When

communities that inhabit these organs nearly a decade ago. “There’s

we collect a sample, we don’t know if it’s just something that’s passing

a constant flow into [the] lungs of aspirated bacteria from the

by, or if it’s truly a member of the community,” she says.

mouth,” he says. But through the action of cilia, the cough reflex, and other cleansing responses, there’s also an outward flow of

Some microbes that dwell in the mouth readily move on from

microbes, making the lung microbiome a dynamic community.

the oral cavity, passing with saliva and food farther through the gastrointestinal tract, for example, or becoming aerosolized and

Like many other body sites now known to harbor commensal

spreading into the lungs. (See “A Lungful of Microbes,” below.) A

bacteria, the disease-free lung was long thought by researchers

recent study showed that the placental microbiome more closely

and clinicians to be largely sterile. Over the last 10 years, however,

resembles that of the mouth than of any other body site, suggesting

evidence has been building that the lungs are also populated by a

the oral cavity, by way of the maternal bloodstream, might also

persistent community of microbial residents—albeit a small one.

supply the organ with commensal microbes. (See “The Maternal

The lung microbiome is about 1,000 times less dense than the oral

Microbiome,” below.)

microbiome, and about 1 million to 1 billion times sparser than the

g n i p p i t a e e r r e e h h t Is oint w tart to p tics s us? o t i s b i n i t a n a rn ag tu

microbial community of the gut, says Huffnagle. That is in part

The mouth may also pass along not-so-friendly bacteria to other

because the lung lacks the microbe-friendly mucosal lining found in

body sites. “There’s a lot of evidence linking oral bacteria to distal

the mouth and gastrointestinal tract, instead harboring a thin layer

infections,” says Kumar. To date, oral bacteria have been implicated

of much-less-inviting surfactant to keep the respiratory organs from

in cardiovascular disease, pancreatic cancer, colorectal cancer,

drying out, as well as ciliated cells that beat rhythmically to move

rheumatoid arthritis, and preterm birth, among other things.

debris and invading microbes.

The first step in understanding how mouth microbes affect human

In a review article published this March (The Lancet Respiratory

health and disease is to determine which species inhabit the human

Medicine, 2:238-46, 2014), Huffnagle and his colleagues argued that

oral cavity. In 2010, microbiologist Floyd Dewhirst from the

the lungs are like the South Pacific, with small islands of clustered

Forsyth Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his colleagues

bacteria and wide stretches of unpopulated regions between them.

published the first comprehensive examination of mouth-dwelling

It appears that the lung microbiome is populated from the oral

microbes, finding distinct communities on the tongue, on the roof

microbiome and the air, and among this population exists a small

of the mouth, within the biofilms that coat the teeth and gums,

subset of bacteria that can survive the unique environment of these

and elsewhere in the oral cavity (J Bacteriol, 192:5002-17, 2010).

organs. The most common bacteria found in healthy lungs are

Researchers have identified some 700 microbial species that inhabit

Streptococcus, Prevotella, and Veillonella species.

the human mouth. “We’re doing really well in terms of who’s there,” Dewhirst says.

The lung microbiome is about 1,000 times less dense than the oral microbiome, and about 1 million to 1 billion times sparser than the

Scientists are also starting to get a better understanding of how

microbial community of the gut.

microbes are organized within the oral cavity. Accumulating evidence suggests that the structure of this microbiome “is not haphazard or

Recent studies have linked shifts in the lung microbiome to chronic

random,” says Boston University’s Salomon Amar. “We don’t have

diseases, such as cystic fibrosis (CF) or chronic obstructive pulmonary

the full picture yet, but we understand that there is [a] first layer of

disease (COPD). In a 2012 study led by epidemiologist John LiPuma

microorganisms that allows for the attachment of the second-comers,

of the University of Michigan, the researchers collected specimens

the third-comers, the fourth, and so on, in a very hierarchical type of

from the lungs of CF patients for more than a decade and found that,

organization.”

as the disease progressed, the lung microbiome became less diverse, although overall microbe density stayed the same (PNAS, 10.1073/

Such a diversity of species makes for varied cellular interactions. At

pnas.1120577109, 2012). They ascribed this shift in the microbiome

any one time, “there might be 200 or 300 species interacting with

to the use of antibiotics, which are typically administered to those

one another and the host,” says William Wade, a professor of oral

with CF. “Are antibiotics bad? We’re not saying that at all,” LiPuma

microbiology at Barts and The London School of Medicine and

says. “The question this paper raises is: Is there a tipping point where

Dentistry’s Blizard Institute. “Trying to model these interactions is

antibiotics start to turn against us in CF?”

extremely difficult.” By better understanding the dynamics of how these communities promote health or thwart pathogenesis, however, researchers may one day be able to disrupt the oral microbiome in

This article continues

01-10

The human microbiome is essential to health, and its disruption can lead to disease. Now, using data from the Human Microbiome Project (HMP), which has sampled the microbial communities of 300

The Scientist

healthy people at 18 body sites and analyzed additional samples from the same individuals, Patrick Schloss and Tao Ding of the University of Michigan have found that specific life-history events—namely, gender, education, and whether a person was breastfed as an infant— affected the composition of the body’s microbiomes as an adult. They published their results last week (April 16) in Nature.

“If a certain community of bacteria is associated with a specific life history trait, it is not such a stretch to imagine that there may be microbiome communities associated with illnesses such as

“We really don’t have a good idea for what determines the type of community you’ll have at any given body site.”

cancer,” Schloss told The Conversation. Of course, he added, such correlations do not necessarily point to the cause of the microbiome differences between individuals. “We really don’t have a good idea for what determines the type of community you’ll have at any given body site.”

Level of education, for example, could affect the microbial makeup of the vagina as a result of other factors, such as wealth and social status. “I think that it is impossible to tease out the individual effects of education, sexual behavior, vaginal hygiene behavior, ethnicity, and social status,” Janneke van de Wijgert at the University of Liverpool told The Conversation. Moreover, she noted, “the study population of a mere 300 was homogenous and healthy—young, white women and men from Houston and St. Louis—which likely means that much additional microbiome variation has been missed.”

Interestingly, by tracking microbiome makeup over the course of 18 months, the authors also found that the oral microbial community was the most labile, while those of the vagina and gut stayed relatively stable. Future research should aim to reveal changes over shorter time intervals, van de Wijgert said.

e m o i b o r , c i h t m l a n e a h m n o u t a h c l e a n i h T ssent uptio . r e e s i s s i d a e s s t i i d d an lead to

01-10

The more scientists learn about the gut microbiome, the more roles it seems to play. New evidence from researchers at the New York University (NYU) School of Medicine, the Memorial Sloan-

The Scientist

Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and the Harvard School of Public Health in Cambridge, Massachusetts, shows a correlation between onset of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) with the prevalence of a certain microbe—Prevotella copri. The work was published this week (November 5) in eLife.

“It’s been suspected for years and years . . . that the development of autoimmune diseases like arthritis is dependent on the gut microbiota,” Diane Mathis, a professor of microbiology and immunobiology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts,

“It’s been suspected for years and years . . . that the development of autoimmune diseases like arthritis is dependent on the gut microbiota,”

who was not involved in the work, told ScienceNOW. “It’s a very striking finding,” she added.

The researchers sequenced bacterial genes in 114 fecal samples from patients who had recently been diagnosed with RA, patients who had been treated for RA, patients with a different type of autoimmune arthritis (psoriatic), and healthy controls. They found P. copri in 75 percent of the samples from patients who had just been diagnosed with RA, but only in 21 percent of samples from healthy controls, 38 percent of samples from patients with psoriatic arthritis, and in less than 12 percent of samples from patients who had been treated for RA. Then the researchers compared P. copri DNA from several of the samples from newly diagnosed RA patients and controls and found that P. copri strains from recent-onset RA patients had fewer genes to metabolize purines and vitamins. The team also inoculated mice with P. copri and showed that the bacteria not only colonized their guts, but also seemed to make the rodents more susceptible to inflammation.

“That they were able to associate one bacterium with one pathology is remarkable,” immunologist Yasmine Belkaid of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, who did not participate in the work, told ScienceNOW. “At this stage, however, we cannot conclude that there is a causal link between the abundance of P. copri and the onset of rheumatoid arthritis,” coauthor Dan Littman, a professor of immunology at NYU Langone Medical Center, said in a statement. “We are developing new tools that will hopefully allow us to ask if this is indeed the case.”

s t s i t n e i t c u s g e e r h o t m e t r e u Th n abo the mo y. r a , l e a p le obiom s to r m c e i e m es it s l o r

01-10

Where are we next steps and stages for this project.

At this point we had an initial understanding of where we were going

We were starting to stumble on some big areas of interest that could

with the project - we’ve realised that the whole idea of the “5-a-day”

prove interesting as a way forward. For example, we were finding

and “exercise more, you’ll be healthier” has been done to death, and

links between the environment and the human microbiome as well

people have a vague understanding of what different viruses are and

as looking into the gut - as that’s where a lot of microbiota condense

how they affect you. We need to do something from here that’s more

and work.

about an awareness or changing a perception on the way people understand their health and welbeing rather than just throwing a load of long sciency words in their faces. This research began to shape our ideas of how we could tackle this project, we realised quite early on that the information we would be giving people was, a lot of the time, things they already knew. Take exercise, sleep well, eat well

Next steps: »» Start getting in contact with people - seek Advice for who we can look at contacting. »» Expand on any initial ideas we’ve had whilst looking through any information found through the toolkit / online.

etc. It was about educating people about why. And trying to make

»» Watch TED talks and see where we’re going.

them care.

»» Get general feedback from people.

We started looking into TED talks - and seeing what people were already talking about this subject in terms of making it publicly aware. Jess Green and Jonathan Eisen were a few people we watched videos of as, and we looked to them for a bit of direction. This was when we were starting to get in contact with people, which we detail over the next few pages as well.

02-10

UNI CRit COlums feedback - and next steps from here.

The crit started with Joe and I talking about our research so far and

Joe and I are meeting tomorrow to go through some of the stuff

how we’re feeling a bit swamped by it all, and explaining what we’ve

mentioned here.

been looking into so far. We hadn’t got in contact with anybody up to this point, so we only had secondary research to go off and base our ideas off. This week for us was a lot about finding out our next steps and whether or not we were onto something new and innovative that

Next steps: »» Start getting in contact with people - send out emails this week, see if we can get in touch with the uni of bristol people as well.

would fulfil the brief.

»» Expand on any initial ideas we’ve had whilst looking through any

Colum just said we were starting on something interesting by looking

»» Condense feedback from a variety of sources and start refining

information found through the toolkit / online. at drawing the connections between environment and the human microbiome, and almost suggested that this was something we look into. Annie and Laura, another group doing the Human By Nature brief, were thinking of getting in touch with students studying biology at the uni of Bristol so we were going to see if we could get in on that as well as contacting some people of our own. I was also in the process of talking to lots of different people on a non-science related subject area, and trying to explain to them all about the microbiome.

into an idea.

ted talks jonathan eisen

03-10

And what’s amazing, when you use this technology, for example, looking at humans, we’re not just covered in a sea of microbes.

There are thousands upon thousands of different kinds of microbes on us. We have millions of genes of microbes in our human microbiome covering us. And so this microbial diversity differs between people, and what people have been thinking about in the last 10, maybe 15 years is, maybe these microbes, this microbial cloud in and on us, and the variation between us, may be responsible for some of the health and illness differences between us.

The variety of microbes is important, and ways of treating illness can be used that focus on the right microbes, not killing them with antibiotics.

I’m going to start with a little story. So, I grew up in this

paying attention to me, but ...

neighborhood. When I was 15 years old, I went from being what I

2:45

think was a strapping young athlete, over four months, slowly wasting

(Laughter)

away until I was basically a famine victim with an unquenchable

2:48

thirst. I had basically digested away my body. And this all came to a

The microbes that cover us. And if you look at them in the

head when I was on a backpacking trip, my first one ever actually, on

microscope, you can see that we actually have 10 times as many cells

Old Rag Mountain in West Virginia, and was putting my face into

of microbes on us as we have human cells. There’s more mass in the

puddles of water and drinking like a dog.

microbes than the mass of our brain.

0:44

3:04

That night, I was taken into the emergency room and diagnosed as

We are literally a teeming ecosystem of microorganisms. And

a type 1 diabetic in full-blown ketoacidosis. And I recovered, thanks

unfortunately, if you want to learn about the microorganisms, just

to the miracles of modern medicine, insulin and other things, and

looking at them in a microscope is not sufficient. And so we just heard

gained all my weight back and more.

about the DNA sequencing. It turns out that one of the best ways

1:04

to look at microbes and to understand them is to look at their DNA.

And something festered inside me after this happened. What I

And that’s what I’ve been doing for 20 years, using DNA sequencing,

thought about was, what caused the diabetes? You see, diabetes is an

collecting samples from various places, including the human body,

autoimmune disease where your body fights itself, and at the time

reading the DNA sequence and then using that DNA sequencing to

people thought that somehow maybe exposure to a pathogen had

tell us about the microbes that are in a particular place.

triggered my immune system to fight the pathogen and then kill the

3:37

cells that make insulin. And this is what I thought for a long period

And what’s amazing, when you use this technology, for example,

of time, and that’s in fact what medicine and people have focused on

looking at humans, we’re not just covered in a sea of microbes. There

quite a bit, the microbes that do bad things. And that’s where I need

are thousands upon thousands of different kinds of microbes on us.

my assistant here now. You may recognize her.

We have millions of genes of microbes in our human microbiome

1:43

covering us. And so this microbial diversity differs between people,

So, I went yesterday, I apologize, I skipped a few of the talks, and I

and what people have been thinking about in the last 10, maybe 15

went over to the National Academy of Sciences building, and they sell

years is, maybe these microbes, this microbial cloud in and on us, and

toys, giant microbes. And here we go! So you have caught flesh-eating

the variation between us, may be responsible for some of the health

disease if you caught that one. I gotta get back out my baseball ability

and illness differences between us.

here.

4:15

2:09

n o s e s u c o l f l i y k d t o a b h y I t r e t s Ev thing ’s wha e t a h t nd th ing on a s , u s c u as fo w

And that comes back to the diabetes story I was telling you. It turns

(Laughter)

out that people now think that one of the triggers for type 1 diabetes

2:12

is not fighting a pathogen, but is in fact trying to -- miscommunicating

So, unfortunately or not surprisingly, most of the microbes they sell at

with the microbes that live in and on you. And somehow maybe

the National Academy building are pathogens. Everybody focuses on

the microbial community that’s in and on me got off, and then this

the things that kill us, and that’s what I was focusing on. And it turns

triggered some sort of immune response and led to me killing the cells

out that we are covered in a cloud of microbes, and those microbes

that make insulin in my body.

actually do us good much of the time, rather than killing us. And so, we’ve known about this for some period of time. People have used

microscopes to look at the microbes that cover us, I know you’re not

This article continues,

ted talks jessica green

03-10

So just as we manage national parks, where we promote the growth of some species and we inhibit the growth of others, we’re working towards thinking about buildings using an ecosystem framework where we can promote the kinds of microbes that we want to have indoors. I’ve heard somebody say that you’re as healthy as your gut. And for this reason, many people eat probiotic yogurt so they can promote a healthy gut flora. And what we ultimately want to do is to be able to use this concept to promote a healthy group of microorganisms inside.

What could we do to help people in office spaces? a demographic typically bad at looking after themselves, in an environment that is not necessarily good for diversity of microbes...

Humans in the developed world spend more than 90 percent of their lives indoors, where they breathe in and come into contact with

So to understand why this was the case, we took our data and put

trillions of life forms invisible to the naked eye: microorganisms.

it into an ordination diagram, which is a statistical map that tells

Buildings are complex ecosystems that are an important source of

you something about how related the microbial communities are in

microbes that are good for us, and some that are bad for us. What

the different samples. The data points that are closer together have

determines the types and distributions of microbes indoors? Buildings

microbial communities that are more similar than data points that are

are colonized by airborne microbes that enter through windows

far apart. And the first things that you can see from this graph is, if

and through mechanical ventilation systems. And they are brought

you look at the blue data points, which are the mechanically ventilated

inside by humans and other creatures. The fate of microbes indoors

air, they’re not simply a subset of the green data points, which are the

depends on complex interactions with humans, and with the human-

outdoor air.

built environment. And today, architects and biologists are working together to explore smart building design that will create healthy

What we’ve found is that mechanically ventilated air looks like

buildings for us.

humans. It has microbes on it that are commonly associated with our skin and with our mouth, our spit. And this is because we’re all

We spend an extraordinary amount of time in buildings that

constantly shedding microbes. So all of you right now are sharing

are extremely controlled environments, like this building here --

your microbes with one another. And when you’re outdoors, that type

environments that have mechanical ventilation systems that include

of air has microbes that are commonly associated with plant leaves

filtering, heating and air conditioning. Given the amount of time that

and with dirt.

we spend indoors, it’s important to understand how this affects our health. At the Biology and the Built Environment Center, we carried

Why does this matter? It matters because the health care industry

out a study in a hospital where we sampled air and pulled the DNA

is the second most energy intensive industry in the United States.

out of microbes in the air. And we looked at three different types of

Hospitals use two and a half times the amount of energy as office

rooms. We looked at rooms that were mechanically ventilated, which

buildings. And the model that we’re working with in hospitals, and

are the data points in the blue. We looked at rooms that were naturally

also with many, many different buildings, is to keep the outdoors out.

ventilated, where the hospital let us turn off the mechanical ventilation

And this model may not necessarily be the best for our health. And

in a wing of the building and pry open the windows that were no

given the extraordinary amount of nosocomial infections, or hospital-

longer operable, but they made them operable for our study. And we

acquired infections, this is a clue that it’s a good time to reconsider our

also sampled the outdoor air.

current practices.

If you look at the x-axis of this graph, you’ll see that what we

So just as we manage national parks, where we promote the growth

commonly want to do -- which is keeping the outdoors out -- we

of some species and we inhibit the growth of others, we’re working

accomplished that with mechanical ventilation. So if you look at the

towards thinking about buildings using an ecosystem framework

green data points, which is air that’s outside, you’ll see that there’s a

where we can promote the kinds of microbes that we want to have

large amount of microbial diversity, or variety of microbial types. But

indoors. I’ve heard somebody say that you’re as healthy as your

if you look at the blue data points, which is mechanically ventilated

gut. And for this reason, many people eat probiotic yogurt so they

air, it’s not as diverse. But being less diverse is not necessarily good

can promote a healthy gut flora. And what we ultimately want to

for our health. If you look at the y-axis of this graph, you’ll see that,

do is to be able to use this concept to promote a healthy group of

in the mechanically ventilated air, you have a higher probability of

microorganisms inside.

encountering a potential pathogen, or germ, than if you’re outdoors.

e v a h ou y , r i a a d e g t n i a l r i e t t n e n e r u ’ v o u y c o n y ll e a f i f c i o n n a y a h t h i t c l i , e b m m a r e b e h o g t r in igher p gen, or . a h l patho utdoors a i o t n e t po

ted talks jessica green

03-10

A conscious approach to design, I’m calling it bioinformed design, and I think it’s possible.

What could we do to help people in office spaces? a demographic typically bad at looking after themselves, in an environment that is not necessarily good for diversity of microbes...

Everything is covered in invisible ecosystems made of tiny lifeforms:

at this data is, first, look around the outside of the circle. You’ll see

bacteria, viruses and fungi. Our desks, our computers, our pencils,

broad bacterial groups, and if you look at the shape of this pink lobe,

our buildings all harbor resident microbial landscapes. As we design

it tells you something about the relative abundance of each group. So

these things, we could be thinking about designing these invisible

at 12 o’clock, you’ll see that offices have a lot of alphaproteobacteria,

worlds, and also thinking about how they interact with our personal

and at one o’clock you’ll see that bacilli are relatively rare.

ecosystems.

Let’s take a look at what’s going on in different space types in this Our bodies are home to trillions of microbes, and these creatures

building. If you look inside the restrooms, they all have really similar

define who we are. The microbes in your gut can influence your

ecosystems, and if you were to look inside the classrooms, those also

weight and your moods. The microbes on your skin can help boost

have similar ecosystems. But if you look across these space types, you

your immune system. The microbes in your mouth can freshen your

can see that they’re fundamentally different from one another. I like to

breath, or not, and the key thing is that our personal ecosystems

think of bathrooms like a tropical rainforest. I told Tim, “If you could

interact with ecosystems on everything we touch. So, for example,

just see the microbes, it’s kind of like being in Costa Rica. Kind of.”

when you touch a pencil, microbial exchange happens.

And I also like to think of offices as being a temperate grassland.

If we can design the invisible ecosystems in our surroundings, this

This perspective is a really powerful one for designers, because you

opens a path to influencing our health in unprecedented ways.

can bring on principles of ecology, and a really important principle of ecology is dispersal, the way organisms move around. We know

I get asked all of the time from people, “Is it possible to really design

that microbes are dispersed around by people and by air. So the very

microbial ecosystems?” And I believe the answer is yes. I think we’re

first thing we wanted to do in this building was look at the air system.

doing it right now, but we’re doing it unconsciously. I’m going to share

Mechanical engineers design air handling units to make sure that

data with you from one aspect of my research focused on architecture

people are comfortable, that the air flow and temperature is just right.

that demonstrates how, through both conscious and unconscious

They do this using principles of physics and chemistry, but they could

design, we’re impacting these invisible worlds.

also be using biology. If you look at the microbes in one of the air handling units in this building, you’ll see that they’re all very similar

This is the Lillis Business Complex at the University of Oregon, and

to one another. And if you compare this to the microbes in a different

I worked with a team of architects and biologists to sample over 300

air handling unit, you’ll see that they’re fundamentally different. The

rooms in this building. We wanted to get something like a fossil record

rooms in this building are like islands in an archipelago, and what that

of the building, and to do this, we sampled dust. From the dust, we

means is that mechanical engineers are like eco-engineers, and they

pulled out bacterial cells, broke them open, and compared their gene

have the ability to structure biomes in this building the way that they

sequences. This means that people in my group were doing a lot of

want to.

vacuuming during this project. This is a picture of Tim, who, right when I snapped this picture, reminded me, he said, “Jessica, the

Another facet of how microbes get around is by people, and designers

last lab group I worked in I was doing fieldwork in the Costa Rican

often cluster rooms together to facilitate interactions among people,

rainforest, and things have changed dramatically for me.”

or the sharing of ideas, like in labs and in offices. Given that microbes travel around with people, you might expect to see rooms that are

So I’m going to show you now first what we found in the offices, and we’re going to look at the data through a visualization tool that I’ve

This artclie continues,

been working on in partnership with Autodesk. The way that you look

a s e c ffi d. o f o n k a n i l h s t s a o r t g e e k t li a r o e s l p Ia te m

a g n i s be

09-10

UNI CRit COlums feedback - and next steps from here.

This critique was one of the most helpful, as it’s told me and joe

Joe and I are meeting tomorrow to go through some of the stuff

where we need to be focusing and given us a bit more fire in our belly.

mentioned here.

So far it’s been trying to get it done in amongst other things, and one thing that came up more than anything else was that we need

Next steps:

to approach it with more rigour than we had before. We need to be

»» More rigour!

producing visual work at a rapid rate, which Joe and I took to heart

»» Explore office spaces more, and their link to the environment

after this and we went and produced a book all about quick visuals.

»» Make some very quick visuals as well as refining some down into a

Colum also mentioned some ideas about drawing comparisons between a physical space and the physical structure of the human microbiome - as in looking at architecture and seeing how it relates to the human body, and presenting new ways of seeing every day processes. For example, sending an email is like talking a breath.

We also hadn’t done anything with contact as the replies still hadn’t come in yet.

One other thing that came up from this was an idea that I offhandedly mentioned, about the phrase “I’ve got a gut feeling”, where it would be interesting just to make that association public knowledge.

New research is starting to show that your gut actually links more to and influences your brain, rather than the other way around. The phrase “I’ve got a gut feeling” is originally linked to your microbiome as the feelings you get when you get nervous or stressed about something are quite closely linked to your gut flora and how healthy your gut is. Therefore in terms of a really simple project idea that we could execute quite well, I think this is something great to explore.

more refined, printed format to show next week. »» Don’t wait on replies, think of ways these replies can bolster your work rather than hold it up.

facebook group various research

10-10

»» Oct 10, A facebook group was set up by myself and Laura, where we could post research for the members of both groups to access and share. Great! »» Micropia, the site shown below, is a great site about a museum dedicated to the Microbiome in Amsterdam. It’s where the video “meet your microbes” comes from, as a promo. This does quite a good job of “dumbing down” the science, but still presents it in a classy, sciency environment. »» Bonnie Bassler was another TED talk we watched where she talked about Microbiomes and the language they use to communicate to each other.

11-10

Jess green

Contact

Reply

Rob knight

Contact

Reply

Contact

Reply

Elaine Hsaio

Contact

Reply

Contact

Reply

d e r e f ef r n e t f o s i ” t d e i r d a d n n a i a t n s a r y r h e t l t i a d e e h m a e s h “t to a

11-10

Cassie Ettinger

Contact

Reply

Contact

Cassie Ettinger

Reply

Contact

11-10

contact - replies Starting to hear back from people

Obviously first person research is massive for this brief, as identifying a problem can only really be done by asking. We focused a lot of our questions towards scientific types at this stage to help us understand how we can apply what we already know and make a difference either in a space or just to the general public.

We got some really interesting things from David Coil, who we heard from through Cassie Ettinger, a student working in Jonathan Eisen’s laboratories. He gave us some interesting pointers, some of which I’ve underlined to the left. He talks about how the research into this subject is still in it’s first steps. There’s a lot they don’t necessarily know at this point, but will probably be touched on in the next few years as research into this subject booms. There’s some definitive links they can draw though, like in extreme cases or with regular antibiotics throwing your immune system out of whack.

Next steps: »» Talk to parents about their office and their spaces.

13-10

initial ideas some very quick mock ups and steps from here

Our initial ideas at this point were focused around the “I’ve got a gut

Next steps:

feeling” campaign, where we’d raise awareness of where this phrase

»» Create more visual material and refine our ideas as we go

has come from and why it’s relevant, then drawing back to microbes

»» Go to the crit and see what feedback we receive, and whether

as support. This is where we started introducing some visuals, and ways that we can convey these incredibly detailed, scientific concepts to people in a quick way. Using the illustrations from the book that we filled, we started to create some very simple posters / distributional material that we could use to start getting this as public knowledge.

This was around the time I saw the video “meet your microbes” on vimeo, which is a project that does an excellent job of making the visual of trillions of bacteria on your body look appealing.

This inspired me with my project a bit, in trying to find a way of presenting this subject in a way that wasn’t too sciency.

this is the right route to go down.

14-10

16-10

The Office deciding on environments

One important part of this project was who we targeted, as we felt a general audience of “everyone” was too vague. Following on from a TED Talk from Jess Green, we saw immediately saw the relationship in the architecture of office blocks and the environments were closely linked, and felt that this could be an area that we research into more.

We started out by reaching out to a few offices around Bristol and Reading, and went to scope out the sort of spaces they worked in. As a result, we found that most of them were actually quite unhealthy environments; see the photo opposite for an example. We also started hearing some responses from people that were particularily interesting, such as “I have no idea what a microbiome is” and “why should I care”. It also came to our attention that this audience already felt like this sort of thing had been done to death before, and that they were bored of various “healthy-eating/living” campaigns, so we needed to target them with something different.

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An interview I had with my Mum and Dad, both of whom work in different office spaces.

UNI CRIT - definitive decisions finding out where to go and focus for the hand in

I was ill on this day so wasn’t able to attend and get feedback on

being with an office space, which is typically one of the unhealthiest

what we had produced so far / what our ideas were. At this point in

environments you can be in.

the project I was still feeling quite unsure, I wasn’t sure if there was enough to our project for it to still be a strong project.

An audio conversation with my parents seemed to confirm this on a new level, where they were telling me about their environments and

The feedback from Colum sounded fairly positive from the way Joe

where they’d need friendly reminders or pointers to do things in the

described it, but there was a lot of refining needing to be done on

right direction. They already know how to be healthy, they just need

our idea in order to get it to the best point it can be, and to refine it

the reminders when they’re needed.

to an audience. I agree with this last point as our project was quite vague at this point, with our audience being anyone in particular. I

The next steps are to create the promo package, which would

think that for us it would be a good idea to focus on an audience we

feature a pad of post-it notes, a small booklet explaining all about

already know and are familiar with, for example office workers due

the microbiome and a set of posters to post up around the office.

to all our research earlier on. We also need to practise presenting the

This would be supported by a website,which they could visit if they

idea to others and defining it, so that we can explain it accurately and

wanted to and get more info.

get it across.

Next steps: No pressure. Joe and I basically sat down and said what was good about our ideas so far and how we needed to link them all together to create a final proposition that was going to fully fulfil the brief. We came up with microbeoffice.com (which in turn is a play on Microsoft

»» Narrow down something (fast) that we can produce that links a bit better. »» Look at how we can use all the information we’ve got already in a relevant format, look at focusing for an audience.

Office, a set of programs that pretty much all office workers use

»» Narrow down an audience for your work and stop being vague.

regularly.)

»» Finish off everything for the final critique next week.

The idea for this promotional project was to create a set of friendly reminders for people which couple with educating about the microbiome. These hints should be day-to-day reminders about how people can care for their environment, and feature things that retain a users attention for more than just a minute, for example the pad of post-it notes. By scattering printed notes through this pad, they might forget about the project and then have their interest re-ignited in it, which will help them retain the information and get it more engrained in their every day language, or just pop up in conversation more often. The idea seemed to combine our simple idea of educating about the gut and the effect that can have on your well-

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visual cues and producing the work for the postal pack

So first off, we have the post-it head, which is like the flagship of this project. The idea behind it was partially inspired by the Micropia video with the pom poms, where we’d visualise the idea of microbes using something people were already familiar with - in this case, post it notes. Each post-it note represents 100,000 microbes, which could be a lasting association that somebody makes whenever they see a post-it note, increasing their general awareness of the subject as well as making a positive association. Joe ended up using a whole pad just to cover his face, and we dressed him in a shirt as well to help give more of an office feel. So as well as creating a visual to help with identifying what a microbe is, we’ve directly targeted our audience.

The font house slant came about from when we were designing the stickies, as we wanted a font that looked a bit like handwriting, or posterised, but wasn’t too scrawly or messy. This font ended up suiting the personality of our project really well, and it gives off a certain feel that I think is really appropriate for what we’re trying to communicate and the language we’re trying to use.

We’ve also based a lot of the language / terminology in a very informal way, so that the subject isn’t taken too seriously as people might just dismiss it as “too science-based.” A lot of what people understand about bacteria is that it’s “bad for you”, whereas most of it is actually really good for you and it’s what makes up your hole system, so we tried to use language and visuals to help communicate that this is all a good thing, not bad. We wanted to tke the focus away from pathogens.

This was the reasoning behind the bright colours as well. One thing we noticed about a lot of science projects presented within design were either completely un-designed or were just black, like the Micropia site. So we wanted to introduce a splash of colour, and almost make this a part of the identity.

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final crit colum’s feedback and next steps

Our idea and presentation of our work went down very well, with the only constructive feedback being how can we make sure this project exists after all the stickies have run out. All to do with reinforcing the message after all the posters have been taken down, etc. Colum also asked about some of the finer details of what exactly the publication does, so our copy needed a bit of revision in order to make sure we were hitting all of the messages that we needed to for our target audience. A point that was raised other than this was to include a set of instructions with the pack, so people knew exactly what to do with each bit.

We looked into different folding mechanisms for this last bit, mainly for the instructions so that people could know exactly what they were expected to do with the different things they received. Instead of doing another piece to go inside this pack, we decided to use a wrap around thin strip of paper in the same stock as the cover of the book, which would have a very quick description of what it is, and a link tying back to the website.

Overall went down well and everybody seemed to like the visual material presented as well. It gave me and Joe a chance to refine down on what we wanted to hand in and pursue forward as well, as there were a couple of edits of the posters, and we selected the best ones ready to carry on.

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booklet Just to get yourself familiarised with what we’re talking about. Enjoy looking after yourself! microbeoffice.com

stickies Leave these on your desk, so they get used. And when you run out, we’ll send you some more to keep you entertained. microbeoffice.com

POSTERS Leave me by the water cooler. Or on a noticeboard. Or pin them up on doors.

They should be a friendly reminder rather than a burden, so pop them up in a place where you think they’ll get seen! microbeoffice.com

taking advice final amendments to the deliverables

Instead of the informational page, we created a wrap around for each of the different parts, and on the page to the left is what each one of them said. We also thought about where we could go after the project as well, and have looked into making it into a subscription based service, so offices would receive a new pack quarterly that would have a new series of posters, booklet/zine and a new item. One idea could be staplers for example, with green coloured staples that relate back to the colour of the document, and we could almost “brand� other items to tie into microbeoffice.

We also added two new spreads into the book after the feedback we received from Colum, both of which are shown below. The spread on the left is just an interesting double page spread that hammers home the impact the microbiome can have in this environment, and the second spread is almost joking at buzzwords commonly used in this industry. However, it goes into explaining it in the body below it, where it talks about the potential of the whole office running smoother and a bit better if everyone has a better, healthier microbiome. Long term success.

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the final package

The final booklet, posters, and stickies.

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the website for a temporary version of the site, please visit microbeoffice.businesscatalyst.com

For the site, which is currently temporarily published live on business catalyst, I continued the theme set by the visuals of the publication, posters and stickies. The full site is pictured to the left, and features a few hints and tips.

The final site would ideally have it’s own blog space, as well as a form section that a company could fill out if they wanted to receive a pack.

We could also make this a subscription based service that would cover the costs of printing and sending out to a company, to get them to work healthier and better. There’s also plenty of roll-over action.

Who doesn’t love a bit of roll-over action.

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Moving forward next steps and strategy

Our strategy moving forward.

For now, it’s waiting to see how the packs are received. They have been sent to two different offices in Reading, one in construction and the other in a secretarial office space. In terms of the future of this project, we’ll see how the feedback goes from these packs, and then we’ll fine tune the idea based on that. For future expansion, it mainly revolves around the website and the role this plays. I would want to introduce a blog / feed system where we can re-blog content related to microbes for anyone that is interested, as well as incorporating some form of newsletter or subscription which sends emails to people about the latest packs / info on the subject as it happens.

We could also turn this into a subscription based service, where a company would pay a certain amount of money a year / quarterly to cover the production costs, and then they would get a new pack in the post quarterly, with new content and/or promo items.

Another idea is that we could base each issue around a different promotional tactic. For example, we could do an issue based entirely off people opening their windows in order to increase microbial diversity, or we could do another one about people stopping using cleaning sprays excessively. Therefore each copy would have more of a theme, whereas this first pack is more just a general overview to see how we can get the term microbiome introduced into peoples vocabulary.

A video where Joe is dressed entirely in post-it notes might be in the pipeline as well.

2015

USER TESTING getting it out there, seeing if it works

We sent the pack out.

The feedback we got - both in person and via email, was brilliant. We recieved positive notions and constructive feedback all round, which led to the addition of a cover letter/article combo being added to the pack. It also gave us some good feedback in how people are using it, and what tips they found the best.

The fact that the tips were reccuring as well was well recieved - with the audience feeding back to us and saying that as a result of the constant reminders they’ve now started to make changes. Some of these are walking to work, and replacing biscuits in their diet with fruit instead, which is a much healthier alternative.

The website also got a few updates, with the addition of articles now to give people more information. This website is now live on MicrobeOffice.com

m o c . e c fi f o e b o r c mi ! t i t i s i v