Research into the gut microbiota and its role in health and disease has expanded rapidly in the past two decades. However, much of the early focus has been on cataloguing the microorganisms present, identifying correlations between microbial species and disease and using preclinical animal models to understand phenotypes. Now efforts are under way to provide functional insights into the gut microbiota and its mechanisms of action, improve understanding of the role of the microbiota beyond the gut and advance the development of microbiota-based therapeutics so that the microbiome can be harnessed in the clinic. In this Viewpoint article, we asked a selection of scientists and clinicians working in the gut microbiome field for their opinions on the major advances in and the challenges and solutions for translating gut microbiome research to the clinic, and where they expect progress to be made in the future.

在过去的二十年中，对肠道菌群及其在健康和疾病中的作用的研究迅速发展。但是，许多早期的重点是对存在的微生物进行分类，确定微生物物种与疾病之间的相关性以及使用临床前动物模型来了解表型。现在正在努力提供对肠道菌群及其作用机制的功能性见解，增进对肠道菌群以外肠道菌群作用的了解，并推进基于微生物菌群的疗法的开发，以便可以在临床中利用微生物群。在此观点文章中，