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65,000+ Patients have received urgently needed investigational FMT preparations distributed by OpenBiome
10,000 bacteria isolates are housed in our microbiome library, the most globally representative collection of its kind.
80+ research collaborators from across more than three dozen countries
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The World Urgently Needs a Deeper, More Globally Representative Understanding of the Human Microbiome That Addresses the Health Needs of All
Understanding the human microbiome is critical to solving global health challenges — such as antimicrobial resistance, malnutrition, depression, as well as autoimmune and metabolic disorders — that are linked to the communities of bacteria that live within us.
However, our current body of knowledge, largely based on U.S. and European populations, is biased and vastly incomplete. As industrialization disrupts human microbiome diversity on a global scale, the window of opportunity to study and apply the full potential of the human microbiome is closing.
Infographic 4: Pioneering a new field of medicine
OpenBiome was originally founded as a stool bank in 2013. For the past decade we have been turning healthy people’s poo, and the bacteria it contains, into investigational medical treatments known as fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT).
To date, we have provided over 68,000 FMT preparations for patients with antibiotic-resistant infections. This work proved that microbes could treat incurable illness and laid the foundation for a new field of medicine and biotech innovation.
people in the United States each year are infected by C. difficile leading to approximately ~20,000 deaths
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The GMbC Program at OpenBiome is building a globally representative collection of underrepresented and non-industrialized human microbiome samples, bacterial isolates, and associated metadata as a resource for the research community. Working with scientists around the world, we collect and characterize microbiome samples (primarily gut, but also mouth, skin and other body sites) and generate bacterial isolates for further research. This unique platform offers researchers a radically expanded view of the human microbiome by providing access to previously unavailable diversity
Infographic 6: Conserving, studying, and sharing human microbiome diversity
To date the GMbC has:
-Sampled from over 40 communities
-Trained over 35 researchers in microbiome collection and processing
-Generated and sequenced almost 10,000 bacterial isolates—a key requirement for mechanistic and functional studies that drive translational breakthroughs
-Published a paper in Cell, a high impact academic journal, with two more papers anticipated in late 2023
The Global Impact of Malnutrition
children under 5 years of age are affected by wasting (defined as low weight-for-height).
children under 5 years of age are affected by stunting (defined as low height-for-age).
of childhood deaths under 5 years of age are linked to undernutrition.
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65,000+ Patients have received urgently needed investigational FMT preparations distributed by OpenBiome