The biodiversity hypothesis suggests that reduced exposure to diverse environmental microbes has resulted in the current increase in chronic inflammatory diseases, including allergy, in western societies. The neighboring areas of Finnish and Russian Karelia are socio-economically distinct, but geoclimatically similar. Studies conducted in both areas have shown that allergies are more common in Finnish children and adults than in their Russian counterparts. The aim of this project is to study the link between human skin and nasal microbial communities and allergies, as well as environmental microbes. This study will be conducted at the University of Helsinki and both computational and experimental methods will be used. On long term increased knowledge on the effect of the skin microbiota and the living environment on allergy development will enable planning of urban nature areas to benefit human health.

2020

2024