Hill’s Pet Nutrition and Harvard’s one-stop microbiome database for humans and animals

10 Aug 2023 --- The One Health Microbiome Resource (OHMR) is the latest brainchild of Hill’s Pet Nutrition and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, aiming to advance research into the microbiome of pets and humans.

The database is the first unified platform dedicated to studying the microbiome. Once complete, it will be the most comprehensive human and companion animal microbiome database harnessing in-depth intel to explore and understand health, according to the company.

The OHMR will include microbial genomes, companion animal microbial community profiles and tools to use them together. As microbiome science rapidly evolves in the quest to combat disease, the resource may be valuable to researchers.

“The OHMR provides a new way to improve human and animal health through nutrition, better environmental exposures and inter-individual resource sharing daily. We believe improving a pet’s microbiome positively impacts a pet parent’s well-being and vice versa,” says Dr. Huttenhower, professor of computational biology and bioinformatics at Harvard Chan School and co-director of the Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center. 

Harnessing DNA sequencing
Hill’s Pet Nutrition has provided DNA sequencing resources as part of the initiative that increases the capacity by five fold and sets a new standard of data availability in current scientific literature.

Due to this data, new types of companion animal microbiome analysis can be conducted. Hill’s is also leveraging its global Pet Nutrition Center to understand the microbiome and how a pet’s health can be positively impacted by nutrition. 

“In the past decade, we’ve learned quite a bit about the human microbiome that can be applied to pets, and with the OHMR, we hope to expand this and make the reverse true as well. Living with pets is already known to improve immune development in infants, and the OHMR will help us to understand how and why this occurs. It’s especially important to build healthy and microbiome-aware diets for pets,” says Huttenhower.

Opening new microbiome pathwaysThe OMHR is wholly dedicated to microbiome research.
The OHMR will be available to the scientific community to advance microbiome research in humans, pets and future discoveries or advancements.

“The OHMR will help bring renewed attention to and much-needed data for the pet microbiome space, which traditionally has faced underrepresentation in terms of existing resources,” says Dave Baloga, executive vice president of science and technology at Hill’s Pet Nutrition.

“We’re hopeful and excited to support more harmonized efforts to enable more generalized, reproducible results that will leverage the benefits of microbiome science for therapeutic purposes.”

Discoveries in the gut-brain axis also take pet nutrition to the next level. Scientific evidence is increasingly suggesting that “super fats” in dogs’ diets can prolong the length and quality of the animal’s life, according to US-based dog nutrition brand Yumwoof. 

Tools for health
Instances of overweight and obese dogs have steadily increased over the last few decades and exceed 50% in Western countries, according to the latest research by Beneo. To address this growing pet health need, the company commissioned a series of studies that demonstrate that isomaltulose – a vegan disaccharide – is a suitable low glycemic ingredient for use in dog food, which reduces the spiking of blood glucose levels after eating.

Earlier this year, Beneo unveiled its pet nutrition toolbox for manufacturers and producers featuring vital wheat gluten for texture and rice- and fava bean-based protein concentrates for growth. Each offering provides specific nutritional and technical benefits and can be incorporated into wet and dry formulations to meet the growing plant-based and hybrid pet food trends.

Swiss technology group Bühler launched Sortex LumoVision, which uses a spectral scale to reduce mycotoxin contamination in pet food. Mycotoxins are byproducts from the metabolism of molds, which are often found in corn used in pet food, causing animal sickness. 

By Inga de Jong

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