Program Snapshot

The overall goal of the NIH Human Virome Program (HVP) is to describe the “healthy” virome – the collection of viruses that normally reside inside the human body without evidence of disease – and to improve our understanding of the role it plays in shaping human health.

Viruses are the most abundant and diverse biological entities on earth, and while much of the existing research on viruses has focused on a small number that cause illness, far less attention has been given to the many other viruses that coexist with us and that are not associated with a known or sudden disease. Despite recent technological advances, it has been challenging to explore these largely understudied viruses that make up this “healthy” human virome. To address this gap, the Human Virome Program will describe the members of the human virome, and develop tools and methods to extensively study the virome in groups of individuals without signs of overt disease and across multiple stages of life. Investigating the human microbiome – the collection of microbes like bacteria that live in and on us – profoundly changed our understanding of the role our microbe partners play in keeping us healthy. This program has the potential to do the same for viruses.

The Human Virome program consists of four initiatives that will work synergistically to achieve the goals of the program. These initiatives will:

• Describe and catalog the human virome in many different groups of people covering a broad span of ages.
• Develop innovative tools, models, and methods to identify and describe the human virome.
• Study interactions between the human body and the human virome.
• Coordinate data generated by the program and make it accessible to other researchers.

The program will help us understand how we acquire our virome and its roles in human development, the immune system, and supporting overall health. One day, contributions from the program may also include new biomarkers for identifying emergent or chronic diseases and conditions, the development of potential therapies, as well as the discovery and identification of potential viruses that may play a central role in keeping us healthy.

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