Multi-kingdom biodiversity in residential environments and immune-mediated diseases in children

All organisms constantly shed traces of their DNA in the environment. Scientists can collect this DNA and explore who is or was there, across kingdoms of life. Our immune system is also aware of organisms in the environment as it screens everything it faces. During the first months of life, the immune system adapts to its current environment.

Limited exposure to bacteria or fungi during this sensitive developmental period can lead to misdirected immune responses and development of immune-mediated diseases such as asthma. Yet, the health-impacts of other organisms have not been addressed. The major reason is a lack of data and methods to quantify total biodiversity exposure.

In Residents, I will quantify human exposure to multi-kingdom biodiversity, i.e., to organisms from all six kingdoms of life, and link it to immune function development during the first year of life. I study if the potential linkage can affect the later risk of immune-mediated diseases.

I bring together recently matured DNA-based biodiversity monitoring, longitudinal immune profiling, and register-based diagnoses of immune-mediated diseases. I hypothesize that multi-kingdom biodiversity exposure benefits immune system development and health. Therefore, ongoing biodiversity loss can seriously hamper human health.

I study associations between biodiversity loss and children’s immune-mediated diseases at unprecedented spatial and temporal resolutions encompassing a whole nation and four decades of unique biodiversity and registered health data. My transdisciplinary project brings together ecological and immunological research.

It takes a leap in the resolution at which biodiversity potentially affecting our health is quantified in our residential environments.

This multi-kingdom biodiversity monitoring can open a new frontier in health research due to possibility to study both positive and negative health impacts of various organisms.