“Our true mother is microbial. Long before we were human, bacteria shaped the world that made us possible, and they remain the foundation of our survival today.”

— Karen Nussbaumer

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Course Overview

The Human Microbe Project is a foundational research-intensive course designed for students of the Academy of Diagnostic and Osteopathic Medicine. As future Diagnostologists, students will learn to interpret the complex relationships between the human body and the microbial ecosystems that shape, sustain, and sometimes disrupt health.

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This course reframes microorganisms not as pathogens to be feared, but as dynamic participants in physiology, adaptation, and systemic resilience. Students will explore microorganisms across biological domains, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, parasites, and viruses, while examining how these life forms contribute to vitality, immune regulation, metabolism, and environmental balance.

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A central emphasis is placed on observational diagnostics. Through microscopy, spectral analysis, and pigment tracking, students will observe microbial vitality states and frequency-based changes in color, such as mold shifting from green to blue under stress, using these phenomena as windows into microbial communication and adaptive strategies.

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Conceptual Foundations

Drawing on both osteopathic principles and emerging research in microbial ecology, this course introduces a diagnostic lens that views disease as imbalance, not invasion. Students will be trained to ask:

• How do microbes self-organize to support or protect the human host?

• When does microbial activity signal adaptation rather than disruption?

• Could microbial vitality offer early, non-invasive markers of systemic imbalance?

• How do treatments—pharmaceutical or otherwise—reshape microbial ecosystems, sometimes to our detriment?

Students will also examine how antibiotics, antifungals, and immunosuppressants alter microbial communities, asking whether suppression of beneficial colonies can trigger broader imbalances such as chronic inflammation or immune exhaustion.

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Interkingdom Interactions & Speculative Models

The course encourages students to explore interkingdom interactions, such as fungi meeting protozoa, and the new behaviors that emerge from these unions. Students will also engage with evolving ideas about viruses, examining whether they are best understood as independent entities or as ecological expressions of microbial fusion and genetic exchange.

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Environmental & Evolutionary Microbiology

Students will study extremophiles—organisms thriving in lava flows, deep-sea vents, radioactive environments, and other extreme conditions—to understand how life adapts under stress. These comparisons will help frame human-associated microbes not as anomalies but as part of life’s universal drive to endure and adapt.

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Applications for Diagnostology

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Observe and document microbial vitality through spectral and visual cues.

• Differentiate between supportive and disruptive microbial states.

• Evaluate the ecological impacts of pharmaceutical interventions.

• Propose and test original hypotheses about microbial behavior.

• Integrate microbial data into holistic diagnostic profiles.

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Key Themes

• Microbial Vitality & Frequency: Observing color and frequency-based shifts as diagnostic signals.

• Symbiosis & Disruption: Recognizing microbes as protectors, regulators, and, in some states, disruptors.

• Pharmaceutical Impacts: Understanding unintended consequences of antimicrobial treatments.

• Interkingdom Interactions: Exploring cross-domain microbial behaviors and emergent properties.

• Extremophiles as Models: Studying survival strategies in extreme environments.

• Holistic Diagnostology: Positioning microbes as diagnostic messengers and life partners rather than adversaries.