Illuminating the human virome in health and disease

Although the microbiome is established as an important regulator of health and disease, the role of viruses that inhabit asymptomatic humans (collectively, the virome) is less defined. While we are still characterizing what constitutes a healthy or diseased virome, an exciting next step is to move beyond correlations and toward identification of specific viruses and their precise mechanisms of beneficial or harmful immunomodulation. Illuminating this will represent a first step toward developing virome-focused therapies.