Human microbiomes are essential to health throughout the lifespan and are increasingly recognized and studied for their roles in metabolic, immunological and neurological processes. Although the full complexity of these microbial communities is not fully understood, their clinical and industrial exploitation is well advanced and expanding, needing greater oversight guided by a consensus from the research community. One of the most controversial issues in microbiome research is the definition of a ‘healthy’ human microbiome. This concept is complicated by the microbial variability over different spatial and temporal scales along with the challenge of applying a unified definition to the spectrum of healthy microbiome configurations. In this Perspective, we examine the progress made and the key gaps that remain to be addressed to fully harness the benefits of the human microbiome. We propose a road map to expand our knowledge of the microbiome–health relationship, incorporating epidemiological approaches informed by the unique ecological characteristics of these communities.

人类微生物组在整个生命周期中对健康至关重要，并且因其在代谢、免疫和神经过程中的作用而得到越来越多的认可和研究。尽管这些微生物群落的全部复杂性尚不完全清楚，但它们的临床和工业开发已经非常先进并不断扩大，需要在研究界共识的指导下进行更大的监督。微生物组研究中最具争议的问题之一是“健康”人类微生物组的定义。由于不同空间和时间尺度上的微生物变异性以及将统一定义应用于健康微生物组配置范围的挑战，这个概念变得复杂。在本期展望中，我们研究了为充分利用人类微生物组的好处而取得的进展和仍需解决的关键差距。我们提出了一个路线图，以扩展我们对微生物组-健康关系的了解，并结合了由这些群落的独特生态特征提供的流行病学方法。