The top 4 challenges for microbiome companies – NIZO
Posted 8th May 2019 by Joshua Broomfield
Microbiome research is abundant and profoundly inspiring. Whether focusing on cancer drug response, or the more classical field of gut discomfort solutions, we are clearly on the brink of some long-anticipated breakthroughs. But despite the promise, companies in the field face challenges.
Discovering the dynamics of prophage induction in the gut ecosystem
Posted 8th April 2019 by Joshua Broomfield
The human gut is a complex ecosystem dominated by bacteria and their viruses, i.e. phages. Approximately half of the viruses that reside in our intestine are derived from lysogens, bacteria that contain normally dormant viruses – prophages — in their genome.
A new phage in Microbiome discovery
Posted 20th March 2019 by Joshua Broomfield
The Human Genome Project was the largest collaborative scientific project that is credited with transforming our understanding of human genetics and revolutionizing medical research. It’s completion in 2003 was greeted as a watershed moment in the history of scientific discovery.
Today, a much less heralded collaborative scientific project is underway that may have implications for human health that could be as profound as that of the Human Genome Project. The Human Microbiome Project (HMP) is a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-supported collaboration that develops “research resources to enable the study of the microbial communities that live in and on our bodies and the roles they play in human health and disease”.
Harnessing microfluidics for high throughput microbiology R&D
Posted 13th March 2019 by Joshua Broomfield
The BioMillenia technology platform is based on microfluidics, a technology platform widely used in life sciences, but not necessarily in microbiology. There are some commercial developments of the technology, for example NGS or dPCR platforms, but it’s a very new application in the field of microbiology.
Gut Microbiome analysis – Getting it right
Posted 8th March 2019 by Joshua Broomfield
The cascade of new discoveries relating health and disease to our gut microbiome has spurred the notion that we now find ourselves in the middle of a “microbiome revolution”. Just to mention some recent examples, mechanisms have been demonstrated for gut bacteria contributing to Parkinson’s disease,[1] determining response to immune checkpoint inhibitor cancer therapy,[2] and even autistic behavior when fecal material from autistic children was transplanted into mice.[3]
How does Maternal Microbiome composition influence offspring metabolic outcomes?
Posted 27th February 2019 by Joshua Broomfield
Professor Margaret Morris is Chair and Head of Pharmacology, School of Medical Sciences, University of NSW. Her research explores the underlying brain mechanisms in epilepsy, obesity, diabetes, and the link between obesity and high blood pressure. We recently asked her about her research into obesity and the microbiome.
Microbiome linked to depression in a groundbreaking Benelux study
Posted 19th February 2019 by Joshua Broomfield
This article is republished with kind permission from Biovox. The original article can be found here.
The microbiome had been at the forefront of a lot of research and news in the past few years. Now, a new study published in Nature Microbiology has linked specific microbiome changes with depression and quality of life. The largest of its kind to-date, the research was made possible by over 2000 participants from the Flemish Gut Flora Project and the Dutch LifeLines DEEP project. The results may lead to novel therapies for people suffering from this debilitating mental illness.
Harnessing the power of RNA for a healthy gut microbiome
Posted 13th February 2019 by Joshua Broomfield
I was a scientist at Los Alamos National Lab in the US when I identified a science-based personalized diet that completely cured my early onset arthritis. I realized that the gut microbiome would play a central role in personalized nutrition and redirected all my science projects towards it. We desperately needed better technology for analysing the gut microbiome and metatranscriptomics offers the best value. It is better than 16S or metagenomic sequencing in two important aspects:
