Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Blog”
It’s early 2008, a few weeks after New Year’s celebrations. Lara Thompson, a researcher for HIV prevention living in Rhode Island, is enjoying her day when unexpectedly, she begins to feel nauseous; soon after, diarrhea hits. Thinking her symptoms were due to her overindulgence during the holiday celebrations, she expected them to pass within a few days – they didn’t. …
Listen to CNN’s Sanjay Gupta interview Director Saffron Cassaday on his podcast, Chasing Life, aired May 24, 2022. GO TO PODCAST
The human microbiome is mostly developed by the age of three, at which point it pretty closely resembles the microbiome of a full adult. This time and the transition into old age mark the biggest shifts in human microbial composition. Interestingly these are also the two points at which the human immune system is at its weakest. This is due to …
Could FMTs be used to boost athletic performance one day? Perhaps, suggests a new study that examined the gut microbiome of 15 elite runners participating in the Boston marathon. The study revealed there are microbial distinctions in the guts of elite athletes. Published June 24, 2019, the study has since garnered a lot of attention. And though the news has …
Fecal transplants are currently being studied to treat a whole handful of human conditions but the potential of the unconventional treatment may have reaches beyond human health. A new study suggests that fecal transplants may be able to save Australian koala bears from extinction. The study which was released last month found that fecal transplants may help koalas expand the types …
Tahmeed Ahmed had been trying to solve the problem of how children recover from malnutrition for 20 years when he found the research of Jeffrey Gordon, connecting the microbiome to obesity. He wondered, if microbes could affect obesity, might they also affect its opposite? A decade later he, along with Gordon, may be on their way to doing what Ahmed …
The people of the hadza tribes of Tanzania harbor an incredibly diverse microbiome, due their hunter-gatherer based diets. The Hadza, who live in the central Rift Valley are some of the last remaining hunter-gatherers in Africa. Because of this they are of keen interest to researchers interested in the effects modern life has had on microbiome composition. Though there have …
A balanced microbiome is not just essential to human health, it is important to all sorts of animals, including our beloved pets. AnimalBiome is a company, based in San Francisco, that is using microbiome research and products to revolutionize pet care. We wanted to know more about the animal microbiome, so we asked Dr. Holly Ganz of AnimalBiome to answer …
Reports show that 75% of adults experience some degree of lactose intolerance. While children of breastfeeding age do not experience such an intolerance. As far as is known 100% of non-human animals lose their ability to digest milk after weaning. And in fact, the ability to digest lactose in humans is most likely derived from a evolutionary genetic mutation in …
Researchers have connected microbiome composition to a whole host of diseases and cancer seems to be next in line to receive attention from the microbiology community. Researchers have shown that the efficacy of certain anti-cancer drugs may be impacted by the microbial composition of the patient. We will cover the topic in the following sections: The microbiome/cancer connection Cancer treatment …