The microbiome of death

You’d think with dying being a part of living that we would know all there is to know about how the body decomposes. Not true, partly because ethical concerns limit our access to human corpses.  But each new study sheds a bit more light. A recent one involves three donated human bodies to see how they decompose across seasons, climates, and environments. Amazingly, it didn’t vary.  

The research groups placed the bodies in three environments across the four seasons which made up thirty-six observation periods.   Each body was sampled for microbes on the skin and in the soil around the body to see what was there at the beginning and through the decomposition process. What they found over those twenty-one days was that regardless of the body’s location or environment, the same twenty types of microbes showed up in a precise sequence to decompose the body. None of the microbes were present at the start of the study, so where did they come from?  

The researchers believe insects brought them. Here is the cool and useful part.  The population of microbes predictably changed at the same time no matter where the bodies were located or the season of the year.  So, they provided a decomposition clock that researchers could read by which microbes were on the body at any given time. That means they could accurately tell the time when the person began to decompose.  It’s an incredibly valuable tool in forensic science when figuring out when the person died. 

We are Drs. David Niesel and Norbert Herzog, at UTMB and Quinnipiac University, where biomedical discoveries shape the future of medicine.   For much more and our disclaimer go to medicaldiscoverynews.com or subscribe to our podcast. Sign up for expanded print episodes at www.illuminascicom.com or our podcasts at:  Medical Discovery News (buzzsprout.com)