The Human Microbiome Project Consortium established a population-scale framework to study the human microbiome through standardized protocols. They obtained samples from 15-18 body sites from 242 healthy adults over multiple time points. They generated over 5,000 microbial profiles from 16S rRNA genes and over 3.5 terabases of metagenomic sequence data. They also sequenced approximately 800 reference strains isolated from the human body. Collectively, these data and resources represent the largest collection of human microbiome data and provide a framework for current and future microbiome studies.