On 5 October 2018, leading scientists from across academia and industry attended the conference The Microbiome: human medicine and agriculture in a microbial world at the Royal Society to discuss microbiomes and their emerging influences on medicine and agriculture.
The conference covered a wide range of topics including the application of microbiome science to agricultural yield, crop resilience in the face of climate change, and greenhouse gas emissions from farm animals. The influence of bacteria on human health, in particular immune-therapy, Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), informatics, and the gut-brain axis, were also explored. The technical, regulatory and ethical challenges associated with commercial applications of this field were highlighted.
This conference is part of a series organised by the Royal Society entitled Breakthrough science and technologies: Transforming our future, which addresses the major scientific and technical challenges of the next decade.