This is the Guardian. If you've heard parts one and two of our microbiome miniseries, you'll know that scientists are rapidly revealing all kinds of fascinating insights about the bugs inside us.

And the brain, of of course is constantly communicating with the microbiome through the Vegas

nerve and through the enteric nervous system.

So it's kind of almost hardwired into the gut and the microbiome communicates with it very directly.

In women who have a dysbiotic vaginal microbiota, they are more prone to infections, HIV infections.

I think the risk is up to 60% higher

in women with a dysbiotic vaginal and microbereota

to get infected.

What you might be surprised to learn is that we know a lot less about the

bugs that live on us. Research into it is very much lagging behind research

into the gut microbiome.

Still, just like our insights,

it seems our Western lifestyles are causing some problems.

There's probably an increase in inflammatory skin disorders in terms of the number of people that are going to

see dermatologists. So it's very likely that we are disrupting our skin microbiome.

So today we're finding out how our skin microbiome looks after us.

They're very important in training our immune system and this is done early in

childhood this dialogue between the immune system and the microbiome on the

skin and how we can look after it.

If you look after your skin, then you're going to help look after your skin microbiome.

I'm the Guardian Science Editor Ian Sample and this is Science Weekly with the final part of

our exploration into the microbes that shape us. Today, the skin. Julie Thornton, you're the academic director of the where we might find microbes. We find microbes across the different layers of the skin.

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