Conserving and Sharing Microbiome Diversity

We commit to building a resource that represents geographic, ethnic, gender, and cultural diversity by prioritizing communities who have been historically underrepresented in microbiome science and biomedicine.

We work in collaboration with local researchers and institutions in our partner countries, and to support the growth of their microbiome research capacity through training, material and data sharing, knowledge transfer, shared authorship, in-kind support, and other capacity-building activities.

We will make GMbC bacterial strains and data accessible to the global research community on a non-profit basis, to enable widespread use.

​​We build a high-quality collection of bacterial strains and data, and implement rigorous standards that we will share and update regularly.

We commit to long-term, accountable engagement with sample donor communities and will regularly report outcomes and next steps to them.

We will establish ethical oversight and advocacy as an explicit component of our governance structure and will publicly disclose our benefit-sharing and capacity-building activities.

We work with communities who hold widely varying beliefs, values, world views, cultural practices, and systems of governance.

We commit to treating all individuals with whom we work—whether members of sample donor communities, research partners, or end-users of the biobank— with the highest degree of cultural sensitivity and respect.

At its heart, the GMbC is a global mission that requires a global effort.

We recognize the intrinsic importance and value of growing and maintaining a collaborative, inclusive community of researchers, participants, and community advocates worldwide who share our core values and commitments.