Holobiontology

A term for a new academic field proposed by Scott Raymond Schaffer {c2025}, a student of academia in Health Science and Health Optimization Medicine and Practice, dedicated to the study of the human holobiont. This field integrates the study of the human host {Homo sapiens} with all its associated microbial communities (the human microbiome) to understand the person as a single, complex, and co-evolving biological entity. Field's Focus Homobiontology is fundamentally an extension of the Holobiont Theory applied specifically to humans. It shifts the focus from simply studying a person, and separately studying their microbes, to viewing them as one: Holobiont: The combined, single living entity, consisting of the human host and its full complement of microorganisms. Foundation: This field is built on the reality that our microbes are not just passengers, but are essential to our health, metabolism, immunity, and even behavior—they are a functional part of our anatomy. Goal: To use all modern "omics" technologies (genomics, proteomics, metabolomics) to create a complete picture of the human-microbial system, ultimately leading to personalized medicine and a better understanding of health and disease. In Simple Terms: It's the science of the whole person, including the trillions of microbes they host, treating the combination as one biological system.