Harvard Scientists + Hills Pet Nutrition Just Launched a Game-Changer for Pet Health
A new web portal has been launched to support the One Health Microbiome Resource (OHMR), a collaborative initiative between researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Hill's Pet Nutrition. The portal aims to centralize and expand access to data, tools, and protocols focused on the microbiome and its role in pet health.
The OHMR platform provides open access to over 2,000 pet gut microbiome samples, covering a wide range of demographics and clinical backgrounds. It also includes standardized methodologies and computational tools designed to support academic and industry researchers studying the microbiome’s connection to disease, nutrition, and overall health.
According to Dr. Curtis Huttenhower, Professor of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics at Harvard, the portal is intended to accelerate scientific progress by enhancing collaboration and data-sharing. “Understanding pet microbiomes can offer broader insight into both animal and human health, given shared environmental and dietary factors,” he noted.
The project builds on previous efforts to profile both human and pet microbiomes and aims to inform future strategies in diagnostics, prevention, and treatment.
The portal is also being used to support peer-reviewed research. A recent study published in The ISME Journal examined the gut metagenomes of companion animals, while another, in mSystems, explored how various dietary fiber sources impact canine gut health. Both studies utilized OHMR data and aligned with similar findings in human microbiome research.
Hill’s Pet Nutrition, which has supported pet microbiome research for over a decade, contributed to the development of OHMR. The company has highlighted the project as part of its broader effort to better understand how nutrition can influence digestive health and microbial balance in companion animals.
For more information or to access the OHMR portal, visit onehealthmicrobiome.org.
