WHAT'S NEW!

Pyrosequencing vs HOMIM. Ahn et al demonstrated that there is good correlation between HOMIM and 454 pyrosequencing.

Price increase. Due to increase of cost of supplies, as of January 2012, there was a 10% increase in pricing. Standard rate is now $220 per sample and the academic rate is $137.50 per sample.

Oral microbial biomarkers in Crohn's Disease! HOMIM has utility beyond determining bacterial associations in oral health and oral diseases. Specific oral bacterial species, bacterial complexes, or entire oral microbial profiles, as determined from HOMIM analyses, may serve as potential biomarkers for non-oral systemic diseases. For example, there was a significant decrease in overall diversity in the oral microbiome of pediatric Crohn's Disease as compared to that of healthy children and children with ulcerative colitis.

Oral microbial biomarkers in pancreatic cancer! Potential oral microbial biomarkers of pancreatic cancer have been reported. Neisseria elongata and Streptococcus mitis were detected significantly less often in the saliva of cancer patients than in saliva of healthy controls. In contrast, levels of Granulicatella adiacens were significantly higher in cancer subjects.

IADR/AADR meetings. In 2011, HOMIM was well-represented at the IADR meeting in San Diego with 7 presentatons on HOMIM-related research. For the upcoming AADR meeting in Tampa in March 2012 and the IADR meeting in Brazil in June 2012, there will be 13 abstracts for HOMIM-related research. Be sure to visit our HOMIM booth at the AADR.

HOMIM recognition. HOMIMs are presently used in ongoing studies at The Forsyth Institute (6 PIs) and in other national and international collaborations with academic institutions (more than 60 investigators or teams), government including NIH (6 investigative teams), and industry (11 companies).  From these studies using HOMIM, there are presently 15 peer-reviewed publications, 3 reviews describing HOMIM and 30 presentations at national and international meetings.

All data are MIAME compliant, which is a requirement for publication in some journals. If requested, HOMIM data will be deposited in a MIAME compliant database, such as GEO.

HOMIM data can be analyzed using many statistical methods. As an example, correspondence analysis (CA) was used to provide a graphic method of examining the relationship of entire microbial profiles with respect to site characteristics (e.g., health and disease, pocket depth).

Colombo et al. (2009) is a culmination of our five year study on determining the bacterial species associated with health, periodontitis and refractory periodontitis. A follow-up paper on refractory periodontitis and effect of treatment is now accepted for publication. The 2009 Colombo paper and Preza et al. (2009a) have detailed descriptions of HOMIM.

See people in the lab.