# Integrative Center for Environmental Microbiomes and Human Health

> **NIH NIH P20** · UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA · 2023 · $2,066,634

## Abstract

Project Summary – OVERALL
We seek to strengthen and enhance the Integrative Center for Environmental Microbiomes and Human Health
(ICEMHH). Our center was established in response to the 2016 announcement of the National Microbiome
Initiative (NMI). The NMI was conceived through the recognition that humans are both connected to and reliant
upon the microbial communities that constitute the Earth’s microbiomes, in the environment as well as the
human body. The NIH plays a central role in funding this effort, “with a particular emphasis on multi-ecosystem
comparison studies, and investigation into the design of new tools to explore and understand microbiomes”
[NIH Human Microbiome Project]. The focus of the ICEMHH is the interface between the microbial
environment and human health, and our research includes clinical, biochemistry and landscape ecology
studies. The University of Hawaiʻi brings three compelling strengths to microbiome research: the uniquely
tractable and environmentally complexed landscape of the Hawaiian Islands, an exceptionally qualified biology
faculty, including an integrated cohort of junior microbiome-focused faculty, and a dedication to the diversity of
people that live on the Islands. As the most diverse biome on Earth, Hawaiʻi offers the unique opportunity to
study the effects of steep, orthogonal, ecological gradients on human health, vis a vis their microbial
symbionts, from mountain to sea, and in both urban and rural settings. The proposed projects aim to address
how environmental variables influence microbial assembly, and how, in turn, this impacts host and human
health. Our research leverages the natural ecological complexity and phylogenetic diversity of our archipelago
to understand the interplay between environmental microbiomes and human health within natural settings.
Using invertebrate model hosts and clinical research, we disentangle the mechanisms underlying these
landscape-level patterns. Our projects build upon the knowledge, infrastructure and resources developed in
Phase 1 to grow center renown, sustainability and capacity. Our long-term goal is that ICEMHH serve as a
world-class model for linking environmental microbiology with human health sciences. In this way, the Center
will provide lasting contributions to the State of Hawaiʻi, and beyond.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10712771
- **Project number:** 2P20GM125508-06
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA
- **Principal Investigator:** Anthony Amend
- **Activity code:** P20 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $2,066,634
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 2018-08-15 → 2028-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10712771

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10712771, Integrative Center for Environmental Microbiomes and Human Health (2P20GM125508-06). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10712771. Licensed CC0.

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