The Sacramento Bee reports on the crowdsourced nature of the 'Kittybiome' project

Dr. Holly Ganz is a Project Scientist in Professor Jonathan Eisen's lab. Her work involves studying the ecology and evolution of microbial communities and how microbes interact with their hosts, and she has a particular focus on the microbiome of cats. In addition to working on the microbiome of the 'big cats' (lions, cheetahs etc.), she also works with data from domestic cats. As part of this work, she recently launched the Kittybiome project:

We are studying how microbes interact with cat biology, behavior and health. We invite YOU and your CAT to join our study on the microbiome and biology of cats that also include cats living in shelters and wild cats… We are launching the largest study of the microbiome of kitties. By looking at all kinds of kitties, from big to small, house cats and wild cats, cats spanning a wide range of health conditions and personalities, we will begin to understand how kitties differ and what makes for happy kitties

Somewhat unusually for a science project, the Kittybiome project was partially financed via a Kickstarter campaign. You can read about why Holly started this project on Jonathan Eisen's blog. The nature of this project has attracted much attention from various media outlets, and the Sacramento Bee recently featured the project in an article:

• Science researchers turn to crowdfunding for projects

When Ganz’s [Kickstarter] campaign ended in June, she had raised almost eight times her goal through 298 individual donations. Backers of the Kickstarter program were rewarded with scarves, shirts and books, but one of the most popular rewards was the sequencing of an individual cat’s microbiome for $99 a pop.