What is it about?
This chapter explores how metagenomics helps scientists understand the role of the human microbiome in health and disease. It explains how studying microbial DNA can identify disease-associated microbes, detect infectious pathogens, monitor antimicrobial resistance, and discover new drug targets. The chapter also highlights the integration of artificial intelligence and multi-omics approaches to advance precision medicine and microbiome-based therapies.
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Why is it important?
Metagenomics is transforming healthcare by revealing how microbial communities influence diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer, and infectious diseases. It supports rapid pathogen detection, antimicrobial resistance surveillance, biomarker discovery, and the identification of novel therapeutic compounds. These advances are accelerating precision medicine, improving diagnostics, and enabling the development of personalized and microbiome-based treatments.
Perspectives
Future advances in next-generation sequencing, artificial intelligence, and multi-omics integration will further expand the clinical applications of metagenomics. Improved bioinformatics tools, standardized workflows, and comprehensive microbiome databases will enable earlier disease detection, more precise drug discovery, personalized therapies, and better global surveillance of emerging infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance.
Ankit Singh Negi
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Metagenomics in Human Disease and Drug Discovery, April 2026, Bentham Science Publishers,
DOI: 10.2174/9798898814502126010015.
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