Researchers construct most complex, complete synthetic microbiome

Key studies in the last decade have shown that the gut microbiome, the collection of hundreds of bacterial species that live in the human digestive system, influences neural development, response to cancer immunotherapies, ...

Fecal transplants let packrats eat poison

Woodrats lost their ability to eat toxic creosote bushes after antibiotics killed their gut microbes. Woodrats that never ate the plants were able to do so after receiving fecal transplants with microbes from creosote-eaters, ...

Video: Vibrio cholerae swimming in the gut of a live zebrafish

The growing interest in the trillions of bacteria that live inside our guts is underlined by the more than 10,000 people who read the recent PLOS Biology essay by Diana Bojanova and Seth Bordenstein – "Fecal Transplants: ...

Tapping our microbiomes for new health treatments

Fecal transplants for treating gut diseases were the first reported therapies based on the idea that the human microbiome is inextricably linked to our health. Now, as researchers further flesh out this connection, dozens ...