ANTARCTIC-OME
Human microbiome transmission in the extreme confined built environment of Antarctica

Mario Zucchelli research station
Project Partners and team Contacts

Project

The human microbiome is the ecological community of microbes living inside, upon and around humans. It is a key component of human biology and has important biomedical applications. Yet, very little is known about what is acquired, spread, and transmitted. From preliminary studies, person-to-person microbiome transmission seems to have a role but specific studies to investigate it are lacking. Antarctica, where living conditions lie on the edge of habitability, characterized by a cold and dry climate, low water availability, strong katabatic winds, salt concentration, desiccation, and high radiation, represents a unique chance to:

  1. explore human microbiome transmission in a common confined and isolated extreme built environment;
  2. determine the composition and importance of the pre-existent microbiome v. the contribution of a new environment in reshaping the microbiome.

In this project, we propose a multidisciplinary approach to unravel the features of human microbiome (gut, oral, and cutaneous) transmissibility among volunteers expeditioners of Mario Zucchelli Station, integrating metagenomics and culturomics with an anthropological approach to track and model the transmission of the microbiome across diverse social and interaction networks. The project weill advance novel methodological grounds by experimenting how ethnographic, qualitative data can inform the interpretation of metagenomics study.

Project’s study components

Microbiome research

This project will advance our understanding on the direct transmission forces shaping the human microbiome in a confined and isolated in-built environment. Conducting this type of research in Antarctica offers a sort of extra-terrestrial mode of thinking about dynamics related to human life on Earth, as that of microbiome transmission in socially isolated groups. Antarctica is a test for foresight on how to live in outer space and in the Anthropocene on Earth.

Anthropology of data and ethnography of science

The anthropologist staying at Zucchelli station will collect both biological and anthropological data, working with the project’s partners toward the analysis of the biological samples. Moreover, the anthropological analysis will focus on the circulation of knowledge and competences among the researchers working at Zucchelli Station during the 40th PNRA mission. The multidisciplinary background of scientists committed to several aspects of Polar research represents a perfect premise for the development of multidisciplinary thinking and practices. Ethnography will aim at highlighting how the local knowledge at Zucchelli Station is molded and adapted by the close interactions in the elapsing of time of the expedition. The emergence of shared talking and thinking patterns, the modification of research questions, the unforeseen cooperations are in focus, as virtuous examples of common knowledge productions models. At the basis of such analysis lies the notion that most of interdisciplinary climate change related research takes place in Antarctica stations, but despite this, disciplinarity and methodological separation are the most common practices. 

Partners and team

University of Trento (lead partner)
Department of Cellular, Computational and Integrative Biology
Segata Lab

Federica Pinto
Federica Pinto
Nicola Segata
Nicola Segata

University of Tuscia
Department of Ecological and Biological Sciences

Federico Biagioli
Federico Biagioli
Claudia Coleine [ITA]
Claudia Coleine [ITA]
Laura Selbmann
Laura Selbmann

Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage

Roberta Raffaetà
Roberta Raffaetà
Elena Bougleux
Elena Bougleux

University of Bergamo - Department of Foreign Languages, Literatures and Cultures
Affiliated to Ca' Foscari University of Venice