Conan Zhao

The paper introduces a disease-agnostic Nasal Microbiome Wellness Index (NMWI) that quantitatively assesses nasal microbiome health using 16S rRNA gene data, outperforming traditional diversity indices in distinguishing healthy from non-healthy samples.

The paper shows that using microbiome data improves predictive models of lung function in cystic fibrosis patients, with non-pathogenic taxa also contributing to predictions.