No. HVP will identify viruses that reside in the human body and that are not associated with a known disease.
 

As defined by this program, persistent viruses, not transient ones (those only briefly present in the human body), are included within the human virome. The virome includes both viruses that interact with human cells, as well as bacteriophage which interact with the bacteria that live on and in us. Both classes of viruses are included in this program. As an example, noroviruses would not be accepted as part of the virome because they are transient.
 

HVP will primarily study commensal viruses, which are viruses that live in human body without harming or helping it. An example of a family of commensal viruses are anelloviruses, which have been abundantly present in the human body for thousands of years and are not associated with human disease.
 

Cohorts or groups of individuals representative of the U.S. population across sex, age, race, ethnicity, and geographic areas. Individuals included in these cohorts are those without signs of overt disease.
 

Initiative 1 will be carried out by the Virome Characterization Centers (VCCs), which aim to describe the human virome by identifying the various types of viruses that live on and in us including those that affect the other microbes – like bacteria – that live on us, classify virus types, describe newly identified viruses, and determine which viruses are present in a variety of tissue types.
 

• The goal for the VCCs is to describe the human virome in samples collected from groups of individuals representative of the U.S. population across sex, age, race, ethnicity, and geographic areas.
• Individuals included in these cohorts are those without signs of overt disease, who represent the “average” health of people in the U.S. These cohorts do not have significant conditions such as cancer, diabetes, etc., though some conditions will be included in sampling, such as those expected to be seen in older adults (e.g., hypertension).
   

Participants will provide samples from various body sites including blood, respiratory tract, gastrointestinal and urogenital tract, mouth, central nervous system, and skin, along with tears, breast milk and other samples of interest, to determine how and when the human virome is established in our bodies, and how the virome affects human development.
 

Each VCC includes an Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) component that will ensure all samples filter out uniquely identifiable genetic sequences belonging to participants.
 

Initiative 2 has two goals:

• Develop innovative tools, models, and methods to identify and describe members of the virome, and
• Develop computational and bioinformatics tools to enhance analysis of the composition and function of the human virome.
   

The initiative will address: the wide diversity of virome elements, lack of universal viral molecular markers, genetic sequencing errors that lead to false identification, lack of standard references, methods of working with small samples, sample contamination, and a lack of robust and curated reference databases.
 

Initiative 3 awardees will describe the interactions between the virome, other microbes that live on and in us, and the human host. This includes cataloging the types of cells and tissues that host viruses and defining the interactions of viruses within a person’s tissues and the microbiome.
 

Only if these viruses that cause disease are being studied as part of a broader project centered on defining and describing the human virome. This initiative and the HVP as a whole are focused on characterizing all members of the human virome, including those that may be benign or beneficial to health; it should be emphasized that the focus of this program is not to study disease-causing viruses.
 

The CODCC will create and maintain an interactive dashboard called the HVP Data Portal as a data repository for both internal and external parties. The HVP Data Portal will serve as the access point for the Human Virome Reference Dataset, which will include samples and datasets from the HVP and external sources that may be available.
 

The CODCC will be responsible for reporting study results through publications in scientific journals as well as presentations at domestic and international scientific workshops and conferences.