(New York Times) – The Human Virome Program will analyze samples from thousands of volunteers in an effort to understand how viruses affect health.

But healthy people are rife with viruses that don’t make us ill. Scientists estimate that tens of trillions of viruses live inside of us, though they’ve identified just a fraction of them. A vast majority are benign, and some may even be beneficial. We don’t know for sure, because most of the so-called human virome remains a mystery.

This year, five universities are teaming up for an unprecedented hunt to identify these viruses. They will gather saliva, stool, blood, milk and other samples from thousands of volunteers. The five-year effort, called the Human Virome Program and supported by $171 million in federal funding, will inspect the samples with artificial intelligence systems, hoping to learn about how the human virome influences our health. (Read More)