微生物学論文プレプリント公開

Microbial interaction between human skin and Nukadoko, a fermented rice bran bed for pickling vegetables

Fermentation is a broad term that refers to the use of microorganisms in various applications, including food preservation. In particular, pickles that are flavored through microorganism-mediated fermentation of vegetables are widely produced. Nukadoko(fermented rice bran bed) is a ty...

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　ここ数年の間、ぬか床と人をつなぐ媒介としてのNukabotを開発しながら、メタファーとしての発酵についても思索を重ねてきましたが、株式会社BIOTAの伊藤光平さんと丹羽諒さんの多大なるお力添えをいただいて、ぬか床とそれをかき混ぜる人の体の間で微生物の移動が起こるのかという、長年の疑問に正面から向き合う実験をおこないました。そしておそらく世界ではじめて、ぬか床から人の皮膚上への一定の微生物の移転が認められる結果を得ました。ただ、人の手からぬか床への移動は確かめられなかったので、そこはまた次の機会で挑戦してみたいと考えてます。いまは首を長くして査読結果を待ちます🦒

　Nukabotでは目に見えない微生物たちに対して人がどのように愛着を抱くのかということをインタラクションの観点から調べてきましたが、微生物叢レベルの相互作用も確かにあると分かったことで、日々ぬか床をかき混ぜてる時にも、ぬか床から微生物たちが引っ越してきてるイメージができるようになりました（笑）人と微生物の関係性への理解が深まることで、わたしたちの自然存在の認識が更新されることを期待してます。

Today, the last day of my one-year sabbatical, we published the preprint of our first microbiology paper on Research Square.

For the past several years, while developing the Nukabot as a medium to connect people with the nukadoko, we have been contemplating fermentation as a metaphor, and with the generous help of Kohei Ito and Ryo Niwa of BIOTA, Inc. We conducted an experiment to face squarely the long-standing question of whether microorganisms move between the rice bran bed and the bodies of people who stir the rice bran. For perhaps the first time in the world, a certain amount of microbial transfer from the bed to human skin was observed. However, we could not confirm the transfer from human hands to the bed, so we will try again next time. Now we'll be waiting for the peer review results with bated breath 🤞🏻

Nukabot has been investigating how people become attached to invisible microorganisms from the perspective of interaction, and now that we know that there is indeed interaction at the microflora level, I can imagine that microorganisms are actually moving from the rice bran to my body every time I stir it! I hope that our understanding of the relationship between people and microorganisms will deepen and that our perception of nature will be updated.