Special event: Joint University of Sydney/University of Melbourne/AAHPSSS HPS Seminar

Rene Dubos, the Autochthonous Flora, and the Prehistory of the Microbiome

Nicolas Rasmussen, School of Humanities & Languages, University of NSW

5pm Monday 26 April (Online)

Only recently characterised by high-throughput sequencing methods that enable the study of microbes without lab culture, the human ‘microbiome’ (the microbial flora of the gut and various other parts of the body) is said to have revolutionary implications for biology and medicine. We must now understand ourselves as ‘holobionts’ like lichen or coral, multispecies super-organisms that consist of animal and symbiotic microbes in symbiotic combination, because normal physiological function depends on them. In this talk I look at the 1960s research of biologist Rene Dubos, a forerunner figure mentioned in some historical accounts of the microbiome, and argue that he advanced the super-organism concept 40 years before the Human Microbiome Project was conceived. Furthermore, scientist contemporaries valued this research and understood his views. This raises the questions of why the concept was not welcomed as revolutionary at the time and why Dubos is not remembered for this contribution.