Mapping the Microorganisms Behind Hospital-Borne Infections
In January 2013, as the University of Chicago prepared to unveil its newest hospital building, one last task remained: swabbing the nooks and crannies of the building, from floor to furniture to water faucets.
The people doing the swabbing were researchers collecting samples of microorganisms—the bacteria, fungi, and viruses that are essentially everywhere, including within hospital walls. As part of an initiative called the Hospital Microbiome Project, these researchers returned to the hospital throughout the year to collect nearly 12,400 samples, with the goal of mapping out the mix of microbes that populate a health-care environment.
Just as the human gut has a microbiome, so too does a hospital, the to the body’s ; some scientists believe a hospital’s microbiome could play a role in health, too.
