Ethical concerns in human microbiome research: bias, inclusion, and co-laboration framework (microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com)

• 71% of microbiome samples come from Europe, US, and Canada; 46.8% from the US alone.
• 79.8% of articles on African microbiomes lack an African first or last author.
• Co-laboration and co-laborative science proposed as frameworks for ethical research.

"A correspondence article in Microbiome analyzes ethical problems in global human microbiome research. It identifies three main issues: bias toward European and North American populations, limited community inclusion, and insufficient researcher diversity. As solutions, the authors propose 'co-laboration' and 'co-laborative science' to foster radical interdisciplinary and intercultural collaboration. A metastudy shows 71% of microbiome samples come from Europe, US, and Canada, while regions like South Asia are heavily underrepresented. The article calls for decolonizing research and provides a programmatic agenda for more ethical practice."