Bacteria make you sick. The idea that bacteria cause illness has become ingrained in modern society, made evident by every sign requiring employees to wash their hands before leaving a restroom and the frequent food recalls resulting from pathogens like E. coli. But a parallel idea has also taken hold. As microbiome research continues to reveal the important role that bacteria play in human health, we’re starting to see the ways that the microbiota of the human body may be as important as our genes or environment.
The story of how our microbiome affects our health continues to get more complex. For example, researchers are now beginning to understand that the composition of bacteria residing in your body can significantly impact the effects of therapeutic drugs. This is a new factor for optimizing drug response, compared to other considerations such as diet, interaction with other drugs, administration time and comorbidity, which have been understood much longer.
Continue reading “Immunotherapy—Don’t Forget the Microbiome”
Microorganisms; they are the most abundant form of life. They are all around us, silent, unseen and undetected. The number of ‘species’ of archaea and bacteria climbs every year and is predicted to rise well past one million (1). Despite their abundance, we know very little about all but a small fraction of these diverse cellular life forms because we are unable to cultivate most in a laboratory setting. In fact, 88% of all our microbial isolates belong to just four bacterial phyla (Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria and Bacterioidetes; 2). The remaining branches of the microbial phylogenetic tree range from underrepresented to virtually unknown and are collectively referred to as “microbial dark matter”.
Bacterial exotoxins are scary things. The names of the big three: Tetanus, Anthrax and Botulinum, are sufficient to evoke fear and conjure up images of agony, paralysis, mass hysteria, and permanently frozen Hollywood faces. The worst toxin stories are hard to forget. I can still remember the gruesome textbook case studies that accompanied my bacteriology college lectures. There were the home-canning-gone-horribly-awry botulism stories, the historical examples of agonizing tetanus poisonings, and the less lethal but still nasty cases of fast-acting staph toxins delivered to unsuspecting airline passengers in re-heated meals (avoid the ham sandwiches!). It’s all coming flooding back to me.