About the CMR

The UMass Center for Microbiome Research was created to accelerate our understanding of how the microbes that live in and on us influence our lives, our health and our environment. Our missions are to:

 • Educate and inform

Research generates the discoveries that change our lives. We want to communicate these discoveries to you. Human microbiome research is creating new therapies and new approaches to understanding disease. We want to make our research accessible so everyone can share our excitement.

• Build Collaborative Communities

Understanding the Human Microbiome is a complex undertaking and requires researchers from diverse backgrounds—Doctors, patients, microbiologists, ecologists, nutritionists, and computational biologists. Collaboration is essential. The Center for Microbiome Research creates a platform for collaboration.

• Promote industry partnerships

Research findings make their way to the public through industry partnerships. Biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies turn ideas into products—medicines, devices and diagnostics. We encourage academic and industry partnerships as a means to promote innovation and support entrepreneurship.

• Provide infrastructure

Multidisciplinary research requires complex infrastructure—specialized lab equipment, data management and analysis, creative solutions. We are connecting and building the tools to help researchers accelerate their findings.

• Facilitate clinical trials

When a new treatment for disease is developed, clinical trials demonstrate that the treatment is safe and effective. Examples of trials our members are engaged in include Fecal Microbiota Transplants to treat C. difficile infections and probiotic trials to prevent diarrhea associated with antibiotic use.

The Center for Microbiome Research originated as a collaboration between UMass Chan Medical School, UMass Amherst’s Life Sciences Laboratories and the UMass Dartmouth Center for Scientific Computing and Data Visualization Research. With support from the University of Massachusetts President’s Science and Technology Initiatives Fund, we are growing rapidly.