Chinese scientists kicked off on May 6, 2008 their part of a European project named

MetaHIT in Shenzhen. The effort, jointly sponsored by Beijing Genomics Institute

(Shenzhen) and 12 European research and industrial organizations, is designed to unveil

the ties between human intestinal flora and obesity/intestinal inflammatory diseases.

Chinese scientists will work on the following part of the project: human intestinal flora

sequencing, bacterial composition, and reference genome; and studying the mutations of

human intestinal flora, and analyzing their impacts on individual differences and health.

The endeavor will allow researchers to understand intestinal diseases at the genome level,

and unveil the role intestinal flora has played in nutrition and health, which will provide

more insights for nutrition studies and diseases diagnosis/treatment.