image: Hologen consortium
Duration: 2024-2027
Leader: Torgeir Hvidsten (KBM Faculty, NMBU)
Funding source: European Union
Project number: 101169005
summary: Microorganisms that live on and in our bodies influence almost all biological processes. Many areas of research are changing as we learn more about how these microorganisms interact with host genetics, and these findings have direct relevance to many global societal challenges.
Hologenomics is a field of research that aims study the combined genomes of a host organism and its entire community of associated microorganisms, and to assess the biological impact of interactions on both hosts and associated microorganism communities.
HoloGen is a doctoral network aimed at developing novel computational and experimental tools for the analysis of hologenomics datasets, understanding fundamentals in the hologenomics field, and applying the hologenomic framework for improving human health and production biology systems
The network aims to increase knowledge about how microorganisms and host genetics interact. It will supervise 11 doctoral students across Europe, three of them at NMBU (one at CIGENE supervised by Simen Sandve).
All fellows will benefit from top researchers with theoretical knowledge of symbiosis biology, microbial ecology, animal evolution, animal production, and biomedicine, as well as practical expertise in large-scale (meta)genomics, DNA sequence analysis, metabolomics, computational biology, and modeling of biological systems.
In total, the network includes 18 partners across Europe, including universities, research institutes, and industry partners. You can read more about the network on the Hologen website.
CIGENE researchers involved in the project: Simen Rød Sandve