WHAT IS A HUMAN POSTMORTEM MICROBIOME (HPMM) DATABASE?

The human postmortem microbiome (HPMM) is the human microbiome characterized from different anatomic locations of bodies (aka cadavers) that are sampled during routine death investigation. The microbial communities from various anatomic locations (e.g., mouth, ears, rectum) are described using high throughput gene sequencing, and analyzed in a way to promote discoveries important to the ecological, forensic, and medical sciences.

This database represents 1400+ death investigation cases, with microbiomes (16S rRNA amplicon sequencing) characterized from ~ 15% thus far. Sample collection from new cases are added to our database on a weekly basis.