Humans Possess Unique Microbial Cloud Signatures

“We expected that we would be able to detect the human microbiome in the air around a person, but we were surprised to find that we could identify most of the occupants just by sampling their microbial cloud”, said James F. Meadow, one of the researchers, in a news release.

To arrive at that conclusion, the researchers stuck 11 human subjects, aged 20 to 33, in heavily sanitized experimental chambers and collected air samples at regular intervals. “It may be just that you’re releasing microbes into the air and some of those microbes are colonizing the people you’re with”. “How does an individual contribute to the microbiology inside a building?” Within hours of arrival, a person or family staying in a hotel room full of foreign bugs will alter the microbial makeup of the air – making it their own. But lately, research has explored how and if it plays a pretty big part in our health and happiness.

Of these microorganisms, millions break free from our body each and every day, and come to form what researchers at the University of Oregon call a cloud of bacteria in the air that surrounds us. The combination of bacteria was unique in every human tested.

Meadow says the findings raise a number of possibilities, including, maybe, one day being able to identify a criminal by analyzing the microbial cloud he or she leaves behind at the scene. They found that most of the participants could be identified within four hours by the unique cocktail of microbiome bacteria (Streptococcus, which is found in people’s mouths, and Propionibacterium and Corynebacterium, which is found on people’s skin) and air. Because each person has their own bacteria and lives in a different environment, in theory each person will have their own, unique microbial cloud. This colony of organisms is what scientists have dubbed the “microbiome”.

For the moment, Altrichter admits that his musings are speculative.

But microbial clouds don’t last forever. It turns out that in many ways, that’s an accurate representation of, well, all of us.

Although the results of the study suggest that the findings could be used in forensics, the researchers cautioned that further research is required because the patterns they found “are likely to be more nuanced in a crowd of occupants, in a larger indoor space or in the presence of resuspended dust”, the researchers wrote.

The research is still in its infancy, but does it hint at a future where you might have to find a way to encrypt your microbial cloud data as much as your online transactions?