Microbes may be invisible to the eye, but they are ubiquitous. They are the influential forces behind the regulation of key processes in our environment, for example the carbon cycle. Many microorganisms are not yet known or cannot be maintained in culture. More information about the diversity of species is provided by modern molecular genetic methods, which nowadays allow the entirety of the genome of a habitat – the so-called metagenome – to be investigated. However, the complex analysis of this vast amount of data with a multitude of computer programmes still poses major problems for the researchers. For this reason, scientists of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig, the University of Vienna and the University of Bielefeld just started an initiative titled "CAMI – Critical Assessment of Metagenome Interpretation", that tests the tools of metagenome analysis and defines new standards and application options. The researchers published their results in the scientific journal Nature Methods. Involved BRICS Group: Computational Biology of Infection Research
