History and Mission:


Metabiomics™ LLC was organized in 2000 to develop and commercialize environmental microbiology technology, products, and services based on the emerging sciences of high throughput DNA sequencing. Metabiomics™ was an early pioneer in the emerging field of Microbiomics specializing in functional and structural molecular analysis of microbial communities that we call now call “Metabiomics™”.

Early research successes lead to development of advanced capillary electrophoresis and LH-PCR analytical methods for DNA assays of complex microflora and microbiota communities. By 2002 the research emphasis of Metabiomics™ LLC had shifted to application of these advanced techniques to study of the human microbiome for health and medical applications. Initially allied with the George Mason University 's Department of Environmental Science and Policy, this collaboration led to the establishment of the Microbiome Analysis Center (MBAC) at GMU.

This effort was later expanded to include the Rush University Medical Center in 2003 to pursue health and medical research applications of metagenomics and metabiomics analysis methods focusing on clinical research into the structure and function of the human microbiome and related polymicrobial diseases.

The Rush Medical Center collaboration was supported by NIH grants to investigate dysbiosis of the human gastrointestinal microbiome associated with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).  This collaboration provided impetus for Metabiomics™ LLC to expand our LH-PCR analytical platform into even more powerful and higher throughput MultiTag Sequencing™ techniques. 

In 2007, the publication of the National Academy of Science report on “The New Science of Metagenomics: Revealing the Secrets of Our Microbial Planet” and launching of the NIH Human Microbiome Project (HMP) focused international recognition and resources on the emerging field of metagenomics.  These milestones also signaled the importance of advanced Metabiomic™ platforms and created incentives to pursue research and development of new analytical and diagnostic products and services supporting the advance of metagenomic and medical sciences.