The "Noah's Ark" of Microbes?

Most of us are familiar with Noah's Ark, where God sent all kinds of critters for Noah to keep safe with his family when the world underwent judgment by water. Loosely borrowing from the Bible, scientists are considering a kind of Noah's Ark on a much, much smaller scale: microbes.

Anaerobic bacteria image credit: Argonne National Laboratory  (CC by-NC-SA 2.0)
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Sounds interesting. Not only are microbes important for research, but many are beneficial for the health of various organisms. Let's hope they put safeguards in place so nobody kicks out a power cord or something. (I'm not thinking of an apocalypse, we just don't want them dying and all that effort going to waste.) Interestingly, the scientists are making evolutionary assumptions that "primitive" people in the bush have better, more natural eating habits. However, transplanting their microbes to people in urban areas, for example, could actually be harmful.

Microbiomes change over time (Noah's microbiome would have been different compared to ours). The selection process seems very limited because not only do microbes change over time, they are different in various places as mentioned above. It is interesting that the tiny things of God's creation are fascinating and can be beneficial.

Instead of building a large structure to house animals, this ark would be constructed to house microbes. It is not commonly thought of, but researchers often collect strains of bacteria and store them in their research labs. But the worrisome thing about storing all the bacteria in a research lab is the scenario where a long-term freezer breaks or goes down because of a lack of electricity. All the strains stored in that freezer will go bad and the scientist will lose many precious samples. Not only is this true for scientists but also for medical doctors.
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Creating what some recent scientists are referring to as an “ark of microbes”3 (a collaborative global safe-house repository of primarily beneficial microbes to be kept from mishaps that could eradicate a desirable strain; as such, this “ark” would allow for microbial repopulation, reminiscent of recovery after the Noachian flood) has two important considerations. First, scientists would no longer have to worry about losing precious samples that they’ve spent years collecting. Second, medical doctors would be able to archive the healthy samples for use in sick patients. The process of selecting samples for archiving can take years of attention that all could be lost easily with one bad turn of events.

To read the entire article, click on "Noah’s Ark on a Microscopic Scale".


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