Scientific publication

Toward a health-associated core keystone index for the human gut microbiome

Abhishek Goel, Omprakash Shete, Sourav Goswami, Amit Samal, Lavanya C.B., Saurabh Kedia, Vineet Ahuja, Paul W. O’Toole, Fergus Shanahan & Tarini Shankar Ghosh · Cell Reports · March 2025

This study presents the Health-Associated Core Keystone (HACK) index, a large-scale ranking system for gut microbiome taxa associated with host health, microbiome resilience and longitudinal stability.

The researchers analysed more than 45,000 microbiome samples from 141 cohorts across 42 countries and 28 disease groups, identifying microbial taxa consistently linked to healthier microbiome profiles and positive therapeutic responses.

The publication highlights how large-scale microbiome analyses can support the development of microbiome-based therapeutics, precision medicine approaches and more robust microbiome health indicators.

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Why this matters for Microb-AI-ome

Understanding which microbial taxa are consistently associated with health and microbiome resilience is highly relevant for Microb-AI-ome’s work on AI-supported colorectal cancer screening. Large-scale microbiome indices such as the HACK index may contribute to future biomarker discovery, microbiome stratification and more precise AI-driven healthcare applications.