# Microbiome-Based Interventions for Food Safety and Environmental Health
## 6 Future Directions and Research Needs  
New technologies and innovation in the field of MBT are rapidly expanding and will in the near future reduce the continuous reliance on conventional therapeutics. This is based on the breadth of its potential use and market value. The advent of new sequencing technologies and culture-independent methods are promising for understanding microbiome-host interactions. Currently new technologies and innovations are being introduced to overcome current challenges, design large-scale clinical trials, and generate robust objective research aimed at improving patient outcomes. Next-generation sequencing metagenomics, specifically amplicon and shotgun sequencing, are widely adopted in microbiome research; however, both methods are limited by their short-read sequencing technologies. Emerging data supports the adoption of newer sequencing tools such as Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) single-molecule real-time sequencing and Oxford Nanopore Technologies' nanopore sequencing, both long-read sequencing, to manage the limitations mentioned [52]. Currently, there is ongoing debate regarding the cost-effectiveness and accuracy of long-read sequencing compared to short-read sequencing, which limits its widespread adoption [146]. Additionally, the application of the 16S ribosomal RNA gene as a phylogenetic marker has proven to be a relatively efficient and cost-effective microbiome analytic tool. High-throughput technology is currently being adopted to provide insight into the microbial determinants of health and disease [147]. Advances have been made using culturomics (a computational method for analyzing cultural trends and a culturing technique for identifying bacterial species) to address the limitations of traditional culture methods that are labor-intensive and limit the identification of gut microbiome, with about 80% gut microbiota previously being unculturable [148]. The statistics of culturable microbes culturomics have heightened and extended our understanding of bacterial diversity [17]. A significant evolution in metotranscriptomics, metabolomics, culturomics, and synthetic biology and their application in microbiome research is regarded as a potential tool to advance research. A multi-omics approach was reported in a recent landmark study on microbial communities present on human fetal organs during the second trimester of gestation. [PERSON] et al. [146] profiled microbes on fetal organs, which play certain roles in microbial exposure in fetal immune-priming, using 16S rRNA gene sequencing; however, subject-specific transit times and selection bias pose a limit to this advancement [147]. Recent years have seen a dramatic rise in gut microbiome studies, which has been enabled by the rapidly evolving high-throughput sequencing methods. Microbial-based interventions are gradually exceeding the limits of feces-based transplants. They are used sparingly in the treatment of various diseases, with the mainstay in the treatment of recurrent CDI, the largest area of focus in microbiome clinical development. Recently IBD, including ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, which is thought to be affected by the gut microbiome, is being explored with a rise in ongoing clinical trials [149]. Again, therapeutic interventions are starting to gain attention around microbiota-gut-brain bidirectional pathway in neurodegenerative diseases with compelling evidence that an alteration in gut microbiome drives neurodegenerative disease pathogenesis [150; 151; 152; 153]. Immune-checkpoint inhibitors, which are immunotherapies that boost anticancer immune responses, are being explored in the field of microbial therapeutics [154]. Finally, AI is gaining attention for its potential in shaping clinical diagnostics, prognosis of diseases, and treatment options to bridge the gap between present knowledge of the human microbiome and targeted health interventions [13].