3Q: Eric Alm on the mysteries of the microbiome

“Clostridium difficile infection is the most common hospital acquired gut infection, and our interest in the disease came after reading a scientific paper that showed fecal transplants work were effective even in cases where standard antibiotic therapy had failed. Patients, however, could not get access to treatment at that time, because doctors didn’t have access to the material for fecal transplants. We knew how to do it in the lab, and in 2013, my graduate student Mark Smith started a non-profit stool bank called OpenBiome, and we treated our first patient later that year. We’ve treated about 40,000 people so far. We’re partnering with over 1,000 hospital networks across the U.S. to make sure everyone has safe access to this medical procedure.”