microbiome

Therapeutics Come Alive: An Interview with PharmaBiome

Posted on by Nour Mozaffari

The next generation of medicine may not come in a pill or vial — but in a living community of microbes. Scientists at Pharmabiome, a Zurich-based biotechnology company, are leveraging their expertise in microbiome research to create truly “living” therapies.

More Than a Gut Feeling

All around us – and inside –exists an entire universe of microscopic organisms commonly referred to as the microbiome. In fact, our body contains more microbes than human cells, working hand in hand to maintain normal physiology. The most heavily colonized part of our body is our gastrointestinal (GI) tract – our gut – housing thousands of different bacteria, viruses and fungi. Collectively termed ‘gut microbiota’, this complex network of microorganisms helps us digest nutrients, produces essential metabolites, protects us against pathogens, and more.

The diverse species in our GI tract co-exist in a dynamic equilibrium, each fulfilling a defined set of functions and interacting with other species through cross-feeding mechanisms that, together, promote gut health. When this delicate balance is perturbed, be it through dietary changes, antibiotic treatments, or other factors, the effect ripples across the body. Increasing evidence suggests that gut dysbiosis actively contributes to pathological conditions ranging from inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and obesity to neurological and autoimmune disorders. The good news is, as our understanding of gut ecology evolves, so does the potential to harness and reshape the microbiome to improve health.

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There’s a Microbiome In My Tank!

Posted on by Jordan Nutting

Imagine a scenario—you’re studying the developmental biology of a species of squid. The squid don’t reproduce in captivity, so females carrying fertilized eggs are collected from the wild and rehomed in your lab’s aquariums. You’ve monitored all the normal aquarium conditions—pH, temperature, salinity—ensuring the animal’s new home mimics its natural environment.

But then, for no reason apparent to you, the clutch of eggs doesn’t develop and doesn’t hatch, derailing your research program until next year when you can collect more adult squid from the wild. What went wrong?

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Rice-Based Cholera Vaccine

Posted on by Riley Bell

Oral vaccines are a great strategy and are especially beneficial in areas with poor sanitation. This form of vaccine distribution could help control the acute diarrheal disease caused by Vibrio cholera. There are an estimated 1.3 to 4 million cases and 21,000 to 143,000 deaths from cholera each year. A recent study from The Lancet Microbe finds new hope in a rice-based cholera vaccine that will fight against the diarrheal toxin without severe adverse events.

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Go with Your Gut: Understanding How the Microbiome and Diet Influence Health

Posted on by Mariel Mohns
microbiome_mouse_model

Over the past decade, microbiome research has provided key insights into the relationship between our gut and our health. There are trillions of organisms in our gut, comprising the microbiome that complements our human biology, distinct from our genome. These gut microbes affect us in many ways, from affecting our mental health to our ability to fight cancer.

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Federico Rey and his research group are trying to understand how our diet might help or harm the important microbial communities in our gut. “If we can understand how microbes interact with diet, we can personalize nutrition to match diet with the composition of the gut microbiome and promote health,” Rey says.

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Manipulating Koala Microbiomes Using…Poo Pills?

Posted on by Natalie Larsen
“Koalas – mum and baby” by Amanda Penrose is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 

In recent years, it’s become a well-documented fact that koalas are about as picky as they are adorable. These beloved Australian marsupials have evolved to become ecological specialists: consumers that feed primarily on a single organism, or small number of organisms. Eucalyptus, their organism of choice, encompasses approximately 900 species, most of which are native to Australia. To the koala’s benefit, the leaves of eucalyptus trees are difficult to digest, low in protein content and their chemical composition contains compounds that are toxic. This makes their competition for eucalyptus with other species virtually nonexistent.

That’s not to say there isn’t competition amongst themselves. Of those 900 species of eucalyptus, koalas are only really known to feed on about 40–50 of them, and of those 40–50, they tend to limit their diet to around 10. Depending on their location, however, some koalas will only stick to one preferred type, which can lead to trouble.  

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Immunotherapy—Don’t Forget the Microbiome

Posted on by Darcia Schweitzer

Bacteria make you sick. The idea that bacteria cause illness has become ingrained in modern society, made evident by every sign requiring employees to wash their hands before leaving a restroom and the frequent food recalls resulting from pathogens like E. coli. But a parallel idea has also taken hold. As microbiome research continues to reveal the important role that bacteria play in human health, we’re starting to see the ways that the microbiota of the human body may be as important as our genes or environment.

The story of how our microbiome affects our health continues to get more complex. For example, researchers are now beginning to understand that the composition of bacteria residing in your body can significantly impact the effects of therapeutic drugs. This is a new factor for optimizing drug response, compared to other considerations such as diet, interaction with other drugs, administration time and comorbidity, which have been understood much longer.

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“The Human Placenta,” or “Why I Love Science Writing”

Posted on by Jordan Villanueva

Have you read last week’s breaking story about the microbiome of the human placenta? Wait, stop, don’t run away to Google it! I’ll tell you all about it – this is a science blog, remember?

I’m asking because as I started reading about the topic in preparation for writing this blog post, I noticed two things. First, as a science writer who tries to stay well-connected with what’s going on in the world of biology research, it would have been nearly impossible for me to avoid this story. I get eight or nine daily digest emails from scientific publications every day, and I think over the course of last week, every single one came with a headline related to the placenta study. (Of course, I read them all. And the Nature study they were based on.)

Second, I noticed that each story I read had a slightly different angle on covering the research. As scientists, we like to believe that science is, well, just science. It’s factual. We pore over the data and reach a conclusion. If we aren’t sure of something, we search the journals. The story, if there is one, is about methods and controls, protocols and reagent quality. However, when information about that research is communicated broadly, outside of the journals, we can get a different impression based on how the author frames their article.

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Think Restriction Enzymes are so last decade? Not so fast!

Posted on by Leah Cronan
Ribbon diagram of EcoRI homodimer bound to doublestranded DNA
Ribbon diagram of EcoRI homodimer bound to doublestranded DNA

Restriction enzymes sometimes get a lot of flak. In the not-so-distant past, they were the workhorses of molecular biology. Restriction enzymes played a huge role in developing early DNA sequencing techniques. They chop DNA in a predictable manner, which makes cutting and pasting genes of interest manageable and relatively easy, enabling the development of  genetic engineering and recombination technologies. These technologies are now moving beyond restriction enzymes toward more modern methods, with the most talked-about method being CRISPR /Cas9. As technology continues to advance at such a rapid pace, restriction analysis  and other “ancient” technologies feel antiquated. But this is not necessarily the case.

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5 of Our Favorite Blogs from 2018

Posted on by Julia Nepper

We have published 130 blogs here at Promega this year (not including this one). I diligently reviewed every single one and compiled a list of the best 8.5%, then asked my coworkers to vote on the top 5 out of that subset. Here are their picks:

1. The Amazing, Indestructible—and Cuddly—Tardigrade

No surprises here, everyone loves water bears. Kelly Grooms knows what the people want.

The face of a creature that is nigh un-killable.

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The Bacteria that are Good for Us

Posted on by Isobel Maciver
Chains of Streptococci

Salmonella. Streptococcus. Shigella. The most well-known bacteria are those that cause disease. Our relationship with them is one of combat. With good reason, we look for ways to avoid encountering them and to eliminate them when we do meet.

But not all bacteria are bad for us. Of course we have known for years that we are colonized by harmless bacteria, but recently, studies on the human microbiome have revealed many surprising things about these bacterial tenants. Studies are showing that the teeming multitudes of organisms living in and on the human body are not just harmless bystanders, but complex, interrelated communities that can have profound effects on our health.

Three studies published in Science in 2018 add more to the growing body of microbiome surprises, showing that certain gut bacteria are not only good for us, but may even be required for the effectiveness of some anti-cancer immunotherapies.

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