Title

Microbiome and Translational Medicine

Description

The rapid evolution of high-throughput sequencing and multi-omics technologies has profoundly deepened our understanding of the human microbiome, elevating it from the realm of the "hidden organ" to a cornerstone of translational medicine. Research into the human microbiome is now at a critical juncture: moving beyond accumulated knowledge of the causal mechanisms between the microbiome and the host, and developing and applying novel interventions beyond current clinical approaches.

Topics

1. Clinical diagnostics & Biomarkers

· Development of microbiome-based non-invasive diagnostic tools for early disease detection

· Identification of microbial signatures for predicting treatment response 

2. Mechanistic insights & Host-microbe crosstalk

· Molecular mechanisms of gut-lung, gut-brain, and gut-liver axes in chronic diseases

· Role of microbial metabolites and enzymes in metabolic and inflammatory disorders

· New algorithms for strain-level profiling, functional metagenomics, and prediction of microbial enzyme activities

· AI and machine learning frameworks for integrating multi-omics data in clinical cohorts

· Next-generation probiotics, synbiotics, and engineered microbial live biotherapeutics

· Standardization and clinical efficacy of Fecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT)

· Development of microbial enzyme-targeted therapies (inhibitors/activators)

· Microbiome-targeted precision nutrition and pharmacological modulation

Content types

Article, review, case report, resource, etc.

APCs

Article Publishing Charges (APCs) for this special issue will be waived by December 2026. 

Deadline

December 31, 2026

Guest editors:

Hongwei Liu

Professor

Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

Research area: Host-microbe metabolic interactions and the translational development of microbiome-derived therapeutics and ecological agents

Email: liuhw@im.ac.cn

Jun Yu

Professor

The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

Research area: Pathogenesis and prevention of gastrointestinal malignancies, emphasizing cancer-associated microbial signatures, molecular diagnostics, and the development of next-generation anti-cancer interventions

Email: junyu@cuhk.edu.hk

Fangqing Zhao

Professor

Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

Research area: Pioneering AI-powered omics informatics and metagenomic algorithms to investigate the interplay between microbial ecosystems, non-coding RNAs, and host health

Email: zhfq@ioz.ac.cn

Changtao Jiang

Professor

School of Basic Medical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China

Research area: Elucidating the molecular mechanisms of gut microbiota-derived metabolites (steroid-related metabolites) and microbial enzymes in regulating host metabolic homeostasis, aiming to translate mechanistic insights into precision medicine for metabolic syndromes

Email: jiangchangtao@bjmu.edu.cn

Submission guidelines

Please submit your paper through our online submission system. All papers will be peer-reviewed. The submission deadline is December 31, 2026. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together. Research articles, review articles, letters, commentaries as well as perspectives are invited.

hLife adopts format-free submission. Format-free submission means that, provided you include everything necessary for review and use a consistent citation format, you can submit your paper without needing to worry about formatting your manuscript to meet hLife’s requirements.

Please state in the cover letter that your submission is for the special section of “Microbiome and Translational Medicine”. Article Publishing Charges (APCs) for received papers of hLife will be waived by December 2026. 

Submission website

https://www.editorialmanager.com/hlife