What is PreMiEr?

The Engineering Research Center (ERC) for Precision Microbiome Engineering (PreMiEr) studies and improves the microbiomes of the built environment.

It is a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded collaboration between Duke University, North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University (N.C. A&T), North Carolina State University (NCSU), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNC Charlotte).

What is a microbiome?

Microbiomes are the (mostly) unseen communities of bacteria, fungi, viruses, and other microorganisms that inhabit a specific environment.

Almost everywhere on Earth hosts a microbiome. Soils, oceans, air, buildings, and even your own body have different and complex microbiomes, and each can be unique!

What is the "built environment?"

The built environment refers to any space built by humans, generally what we refer to as “indoors.”

These spaces include your home, place of work, vehicle, hospital, and shopping mall. The average person can spend up to 90% of their life within built environments.

Why should we care about microbiomes of the built environment?

We are all too aware that some microbes can make us sick, and many of those can be picked up through contact with our immediate environment.

One mission of PreMiEr is to learn how to prevent harmful or pathogenic microbes from surviving in the built environment and help make our time spent indoors safer.

Can a building microbiome be "healthy?"

Recent advances in both materials and design have helped to improve the health of buildings and the people in them.

In PreMiEr, we are studying how specific microbes can lead to healthier indoor spaces.

“This center touches on the struggles any parent or caregiver undergoes because they want to make the best decisions about what their loved ones are exposed to, but that’s a really difficult thing to do because we don’t yet know what a healthy microbiome might look like in the places we spend most of our time. Our goal is to start to fill those data gaps and lay the foundation for researchers to dig into these important questions.”

Dr. Claudia Gunsch

Director, PreMiEr

PreMiEr’s vision is to enable the bioinformed design and operation of smart,
healthy built environments through microbiome engineering.

Follow us on LinkedIn or Bluesky or watch our video to learn more.

Latest News

PreMiEr’s Test Beds spotlighted in Pratt School of Engineering Article

The Pratt School of Engineering highlighted three of PreMiEr's test beds this week, with a spotlight on hospitals. Click the link to read more about these built environments and hear from Dr. Deverick Anderson, one of PreMiEr's test bed co-leads....

Dr. Joseph Graves Jr. featured on podcast

Dr. Joseph Graves Jr. of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University was recently featured on an episode of the Big Picture Science podcast. Dr. Graves was part of the episode entitled "Going Multicellular." The direct link to the episode is here....

PS&S Joins Duke PreMiEr Engineering Research Center to Study Microbiomes in Indoor Spaces

PS&S brings to the partnership practical expertise on the design and construction of the built environment. The Engineering Research Center (ERC) for Precision Microbiome Engineering (PreMiEr) is excited to announce a new industry partnership with PS&S, an...