These companies want to transform our gut bugs into drugs. How close are they to market?

“If you had wanted to be a feces donor for a certain major hospital system before February 2016, you would have had to buy yourself a blender.

On the morning of the transplant, you would have woken up, produced a bit of fresh dung, and blended it with salt water until it had what the hospital described as “a milk-shake-like consistency.” You would have put the slurry in a Ziploc, carried it to the hospital, and — after some futzing — it would have been deposited into the gastrointestinal tract of a family member or friend.

In some ways, the field has come a long way since those DIY days of freezer bags and blenders.”

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