"RePOOPulate"

It won't work, of course. Oral probiotics have a very low success rate for IBD across the board. Even natural ferments have a higher success rate.

It was predictable though that after they banned FMT, someone would try to mimic FMT in a pill form in order to profit.

You're never going to be able to duplicate colon ecology in a pill. We still know more about outer space than we do the different types of flora inhabiting the bowel.

You can't replicate flora relationships in a pill. To do that they'd have to be growing all the flora together in a biofilm colony, which is not possible in a lab, which is why FMT is still the best thing we have in that department.

It's really sad to see all the years of FMT research in Guelph being channeled into product production instead of a proposal to the Canadian government on how to do FMT effectively. But if you look at the team's list of sponsors, one of which is the US Department of Defense (!!), it's not hard to understand why there is a profit incentive here.

With FMT they can only make money off the procedure itself. With a pill they can profit enormously. Say hello to the reason why Canadian and US governments banned FMT for everything except treatment resistant c. diff. It's not because FMT is dangerous but because they need time to learn how to profit.

Sorry I didn't mean to be such a bummer, I know you were excited. I have just been in the medical research profession for years now, in addition to having to research my own health problems. Medical research is all private now, so hardly anything gets funded unless the end result comes attached to product proposals.

Some companies in the USA have gathered donor samples from highly screened donors and combined them in freeze-dried pill form, with a delivery system that reaches the colon. This might be a better bet than manufacturing probiotics because the bacteria in those samples are already primed to colonize.

@connor

You missed the whole point of the set up a the University of Guelph.... It's purpose.

It is very difficult to study bacterial groups interacting within a human colon. So the set-up was initially developed as a means to study this process by duplicating the conditions found within the human colon in a lab as best as possible. Giving them the ability to introduce single species up to multiples of species in a controlled manner.

More so it allows them to make changes (additions/subtractions) of compounds and/or add compounds in an isolated environment to learn more about what goes on in there (our colons and interacting bacterial populations and compounds) and the effects these things can have when all combined together in a colonic type environment.

It is not meant as a means to commercialize 'poop pills'. Though, like any other University type project the end game is always to commercialize a functional product, which leads to further re-investment. Re-poopulate is in clinical trials at McMaster University for it's effects on C-diff. My GI mentioned there was a small case study going on for UC as well - this was about a year ago give or take so I do not know what the results were. Both facilities (UoG and McMaster Hospital) are quite close to me.

As of late, a lot of research at the lab has gone into the effects of fibre and fibre compounds as well as the study of how colonic bacteria and diet can influence weight gain. Dr. Emma Allen Vercoe gives one or more TED talks on the whole set-up and what they have learned since it was built.

As well, there have been a few patents filed as of late for treatment of inflammatory bowl disease via single/multiple probiotics. Most notably Dr. Borody which was coincidentally posted a day ago on another board and discussion altogether. Many are waiting impatiently because success was found (in small case study) for both Crohns and UC. /patents.google.com/patent/WO2017143386A1/en This would be for the use of multiple Dietzia bacteria. Which shows some pretty strong promise above others.

Previous to this there was a bit of an argument over patent rights to the original Dietzia strain which held things up for some time. But this was a cattle strain for the treatment/cure of MAP in cattle. Borody's is exciting because it is a combination of multiple strains and they have been used in actual human patient case studies as mentioned within the patent in a range of different diseases.

I believe it to be relevant to the treatment of UC as well as Borody has mentioned it in his interviews I think.

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EDIT - From the patent and in regards to Crohn's specifically, not UC - "Having learned that Dielzia and other mycolic acid-containing bacteria initially accelerate MAP growth intracellularly, it makes sense to follow this pre-treatment with Anti- MAP antibiotics. Since antibiotics directed at MAP also affect the GI microbiome, it would then be best to restore the gut flora using FSM fecal implant. Hence we set out to treat with Dietzia initially, for 3 weeks then switched to Anti-MAP for 4 weeks, then completed with 2 weeks of FSM via colonoscopy then enema."

"This cycling was continued for 3 cycles, and at the last colonoscopy the progressive healing of the colonic Crohn's disease was all but complete with only several pseudopolyps remaining. Both living and dead Dietzia or other mycolic acid containing probiotics in this class, can be used with good effect."

Post Edited (Canada Mark) : 3/10/2018 7:58:25 PM (GMT-7)

Actually if you just put plain old poop in a pill you have what you are saying is not possible.

There are many of these in clinical trial right now especially at the Centre for Digestive Diseases.

Also contrary to popular belief 'complete eradication' is not only impossible, but upon heavy treatment with ABX overall total bacterial population can increase dramatically. It's only the diversity that decreases and is specific to the families of bacteria the ABX target.

And the university/government funded it, not pharma by the way.