(New York, April 25, 2025) – In a groundbreaking initiative poised to revolutionize our understanding of human biology, scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine have launched an ambitious project aimed at cataloging the normal human virome—the vast and intricate ecosystem of viruses inhabiting our bodies. Termed Viromes Across Space and Time (VAST), this multi-institutional collaboration is supported by the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health. VAST intends to deploy pioneering molecular and computational methodologies to explore previously inaccessible dimensions of viral diversity, composition, and dynamics within healthy individuals around the globe. By establishing a comprehensive baseline characterization of the human virome, researchers hope to unlock new pathways for preventing, diagnosing, and treating a broad spectrum of diseases linked to viral activity.
For decades, virologists have recognized that the majority of viruses residing in and on humans do not result in overt illness. Much of this biological "dark matter" remained elusive due to technical limitations; traditional laboratory diagnostics failed to detect the extensive variety of viruses that silently persist in our bodies. However, the advent of high-throughput DNA and RNA sequencing technologies, combined with advanced bioinformatics, now offers unprecedented opportunities to study these viral populations in exquisite detail. Past research has primarily focused on how alterations in the virome contribute to disease pathology, but the VAST initiative addresses an equally critical question: what defines the virome of a healthy individual?
Dr. Christopher Mason, WorldQuant Professor of Genomics and Computational Biomedicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and a principal investigator on the project, emphasizes the significance of understanding viral variability on a global scale. “Our goal is to map out the normal baseline of viral diversity, abundance, and geographic variation in people leading ordinary, healthy lives,” he explains. This foundational knowledge is fundamental for distinguishing benign viral residents from those that may become opportunistic pathogens under certain conditions. Dr. Alexander Lucaci, a postdoctoral fellow spearheading the project’s bioinformatics analysis, highlights the novelty of this endeavor, underscoring that "while most virology has concentrated on harmful viral agents, our aim is to characterize the viruses that coexist with us without currently understood functions.”
The VAST project leverages an extensive biobank of human samples that Dr. Mason and his laboratory have meticulously collected over several years. Supplementing this, the initiative plans to enroll expansive cohorts inclusive of diverse demographic groups—children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly—spanning multiple continents and encompassing unique environmental and lifestyle exposures. This diversity, paired with longitudinal sampling, will offer insights into temporal dynamics and the interplay between host factors and viral communities. “Our repository will contain tens of thousands of specimens complemented by rich metadata, enabling us to integrate virome profiles with individual clinical and environmental histories,” states Dr. Lucaci.
Institutional collaboration is central to VAST’s design. While Weill Cornell Medicine leads the molecular and computational biology efforts, Stanford University contributes complementary expertise and resources. Notably, the project also integrates ethical analysis into its framework under the guidance of Dr. Inmaculada de Melo-Martin, professor of medical ethics at Weill Cornell Medicine. Her work ensures that large-scale data collection and the consequent generation of sensitive personal information adhere to the highest ethical standards, accounting for privacy, informed consent, and equitable data use.
Technically, the project employs cutting-edge nucleic acid sequencing approaches, including metagenomic and metatranscriptomic techniques capable of capturing viral genomes and transcripts from complex biological samples without prior viral enrichment. These methods enable the detection of both DNA and RNA viruses, including those present at extremely low abundance. Computational pipelines then assemble and annotate viral sequences, differentiate endogenous viral elements, and characterize viral population structures. This holistic approach intends to reveal the breadth of viral genetic variability and functional potential within the human virome.
Understanding the normal virome has profound implications for human health. Many viruses residing asymptomatically may become opportunistic pathogens when the immune system is compromised or under stress. Establishing a viral baseline provides a critical comparative framework to identify pathological shifts and viral triggers of disease. Dr. Mason notes, “This foundational data will allow researchers and clinicians to chart how viral communities transition from harmonious coexistence to pathogenic states in response to disease, immune modulation, or environmental changes.”
Furthermore, results from VAST promise to enhance diagnostic capabilities by informing the development of assays that discriminate between harmless and harmful viral strains. The project also opens avenues for novel therapeutic interventions targeting the virome’s influence on human physiology and immunity. Importantly, this research broadens the conceptual scope of virology, moving beyond the simplistic pathogen-centric viewpoint to embrace the complexity of viral ecosystems integral to human biology.
The multi-year duration of the project ensures that researchers can observe temporal fluctuations and evolutionary dynamics within the virome, tracking how viral populations respond to factors such as aging, diet, lifestyle alterations, and shifts in microbial communities. Such longitudinal insights are invaluable for understanding chronic diseases potentially linked to viral interactions and for investigating the role of viruses in the aging process, a focus area of the National Institute on Aging.
Beyond the immediate scientific ramifications, VAST serves as a model for integrative biomedical research. Its synergy of wet-lab experimentation, computational innovation, cohort-based clinical data, and ethical scholarship exemplifies a comprehensive strategy to tackle complex biological questions. As sequencing technology continues to advance and data analytics evolve, the knowledge generated by this project lays a robust foundation for future endeavors to explore virus-host dynamics in unprecedented detail.
In conclusion, the Viromes Across Space and Time project heralds a new era in virology, one that acknowledges the ubiquity and functional diversity of viruses within human biology. By systematically characterizing the normal human virome across diverse populations and over time, VAST sets the stage for transformative discoveries linking viral ecology to health and disease. This monumental effort promises to reshape our understanding of viruses—not just as agents of illness but as integral components of the biological systems that define us.
Subject of Research: Human virome, viral ecology, molecular and computational virology, longitudinal cohort studies, ethical considerations in biomedical data collection.
Article Title: A VAST New View of Viruses: Mapping the Normal Human Virome Across Space and Time
News Publication Date: April 25, 2025
Web References: Not provided
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Image Credits: Ashley Jones
Keywords: Viruses, Viral infections, Human biology, Molecular biology, Genome projects
