Through our diets, hygiene practices, overuse of antibiotics and other aspects of our Westernised diets, we are losing much of the vast diversity of our gut microbiomes. In this episode for World Microbiome Day, I speak to Prof. Maria Gloria Dominguez Bello who has conducted fascinating work on the gut microbiomes of uncontacted Amerindian Tribes in the Amazon Jungle, who have amazingly diverse microbiomes. We also discuss her pioneering work on vaginal seeding in C-section births and her fascinating initiative to store microbial diversity through the global Microbiota Vault.