People and Places - Global Microbiome Conservancy

As we continue to collect human microbiome samples across the globe, we will post pictures and videos here to present to you, the members of our consortium, and the populations we work with.

Kazakhstan

Paraguay

Iraq

Argentina

Pakistan

Nepal

Indonesia

This picture of our team meeting local guide is the last we were allowed to take…

Central African Republic

In Central African Republic, we worked again with GMbC fellows Alain Fezeu and Vanessa Juimo who travelled from Cameroon to collaborate with the team of Dr. Ernest Lango-Yaya from the National Laboratory in Bangui.

Thailand

Hmong, a teenager living in the highlands of northern Thailand, dressed for a folk dance performance at a festival celebrating their traditions and culture.

We worked with Maniq hunter-gathers living near Phatthalung Province in Thailand…

Senegal

A Bedik village in southeastern Senegal. Bedik people have developed specific cultures and lifestyles to work synergistically with their preserved environment.

We worked with villagers of a Moors community near Diama, at the border between Senegal and Mauritania.

Malaysia

In March 2019, we met with our Malaysian collaborators and signed a Memorandum of Agreement between University of Malaya and MIT.

In Kuala Lumpur, we worked with Malay, Chinese and Indian people.

The Batek community in Gua Musang live on the edge of a forest that supports their hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

Nigeria

In Okoroba village, Cross River State, we worked with Efik and Ibibio peoples whose homes are often near their cassava crops.

Rwanda

In Kigali, markets are stocked with fresh food. Yet such dietary shifts are recent on an evolutionary timescale.

Fiber-rich foods like these beans help feed the microbial ecosystem inside us.

Scientists at the National Reference Laboratory in Kigali review bacterial DNA extraction protocols with GMbC team leader M. Poyet.

Ghana

Fante fishermen pulling their canoe to shore on Ampenyi beach, Ghana. Reduced catches now pose a major socio-economic challenge for many rural communities in the Gulf of Guinea.

Tanzania

Hadza women pound baobab seeds to make flour, which they mix with water, honey, and herbs into a nutritious porridge.

In early 2018, we worked with the Datoga people to learn about the preservation of traditional pastoralist lifestyles.

Watch: Hadza men collecting honey from a baobab tree

Watch: Processing baobab seeds into meal

Cameroon

In southeastern Cameroon, we worked with BaAka hunter-gatherers. With translator Etienne Sakassi, we learned about forest-based traditions of food and medicine.

BaAka huts called móngulu are typically single-family homes made of branches and leaves, predominantly built by women.

Finland

The indigenous Sami people live in Lapland, the largest and northernmost region of Finland.

Canada

Resolute Bay, Canada, is one of the Arctic’s northernmost and coldest inhabited communities.

In 2017, we worked with Inuit communities whose traditional diet, rich in animal fat and protein, helps shape their unique microbiome.

United States

During our first sampling trip in early 2017, we collaborated with scientists from Chief Dull Knife College to engage Northern Cheyenne participants in Montana.