Solarea Bio & Hebrew SeniorLife Initiate Mycobiome Research

Solarea Bio, and Hebrew SeniorLife have teamed up for a competitive research grant received from the U.S. National Academy of Medicine’s Health Longevity Initiative extensively focusing on Mycobiome.

Researchers from the New England based Hebrew SeniorLife affiliated with Harvard Medical School suggest a significant rise in age-related diseases. Diseases including cardiovascular or Alzheimer’s wherein age plays a crucial role are on the spike. Chronic low-grade inflammation if the focal point of the age-related diseases often known as inflammaging. Through recent studies, it has been evident that the gut microbiome acts as a key regulator stimulating the inflammaging process. Microbiome directly impacts the development and functioning of the immune system.

While the role of the bacteria is outlined the impact of fungi has not been focused upon. Fungi forms a crucial part of the gut microbiome and has been neglected due to various reasons. Fungi display large and highly complex genomes and hence rely on deep sequencing and hybrid assembly. Additionally, availability of fungal genome databases is insufficient to support accurate functional gene prediction. Also, identification of fungal metabolites crucial for human health is lacks efficiency due to the prevalence of underdeveloped and inferior quality bioinformatic tools.

The researchers along with Solarea Bio hypothesize the mycobiome capabilities. Mycobiome, a part of microbiome refers to collection of the fungi present. Mycobiome could potentially provide an untapped reserve of probiotic fungi capable of countering inflammaging. The team will sequence a subset of massive fungal collection identifying the fungi with potential probiotic.