How Does Microbiome Exchange Therapy Work?

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Del curso dictado por The Pennsylvania State University

Epidemics - the Dynamics of Infectious Diseases

616 calificaciones

The Pennsylvania State University

Epidemics - the Dynamics of Infectious Diseases

616 calificaciones

Not so long ago, it was almost guaranteed that you would die of an infectious disease. In fact, had you been born just 150 years ago, your chances of dying of an infectious disease before you've reached the tender age of 5 would have been extremely high. Since then, science has come a long way in understanding infectious diseases - what they are, how they spread, and how they can be prevented. But diseases like HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis, or the flu are still major killers worldwide, and novel emerging diseases are a constant threat to public health. In addition, the bugs are evolving. Antibiotics, our most potent weapon against bacterial infections, are losing their power because the bacteria are becoming resistant. In this course, we'll explore the major themes of infectious diseases dynamics. After we’ve covered the basics, we'll be looking at the dynamics of the flu, and why we're worried about flu pandemics. We'll be looking at the dynamics of childhood diseases such as measles and whooping cough, which were once considered almost eradicated, but are now making a comeback. We'll explore Malaria, and use it as a case study of the evolution of drug resistance. We'll even be looking at social networks - how diseases can spread from you to your friends to your friends' friends, and so on. And of course we’ll be talking about vaccination too. We’ll also be talking about how mobile phones, social media and crowdsourcing are revolutionizing disease surveillance, giving rise to a new field of digital epidemiology. And yes, we will be talking about Zombies - not human zombies, but zombie ants whose brains are hijacked by an infectious fungus. We're looking forward to having you join us for an exciting course!

De la lección

Ask Us Anything Videos

The videos accessible in this module are responses to questions that have been posed in previous sessions of this course. We invite you to look around here as an additional resource to answer questions you might have yourself or explore topics that pique your interest.

Eric Harvill and What is the Whole Micro-Biome, Pro-Biotic, Good Bacteria Thing?6:58

Why Can't Our Antibodies Mutate Like Antigens?4:09

How Does Microbiome Exchange Therapy Work?8:00

What are the Best Strategies to Combat Multi-Species Infections?7:40

How Relevant is the Concept of Critical Community Size?7:56

Conoce a los instructores

Dr. Ottar N. Bjornstad
Professor of Entomology and Biology
Department of Biology
Dr. Rachel A. Smith
Associate Professor
Department of Communication Arts & Sciences and Human Development & Family Studies
Dr. Mary L. Poss
Professor of Biology
Department of Biology
Dr. David P. Hughes
Assistant Professor of Entomology and Biology
Department of Biology
Dr. Peter Hudson
Willaman Professor of Biology
Department of Biology
Dr. Matthew Ferrari
Assistant Professor of Biology
Department of Biology
Dr. Andrew Read
Alumni Professor in the Biological Sciences, and Professor of Entomology
Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics
Dr. Marcel Salathé
Assistant Professor of Biology
Department of Biology

All right so, I find this un endingly fascinating that I mean,

what are the most intriguing and almost sci fi medical therapies that have been

suggested in the last several years, has been microbe replacement therapy, right?

So for certain kinds of kinds of infections, and certain kinds of ailments,

if you can effectively take the microbiome of a healthy individual and

put them into a sick individual, then you can effect a complete change here.

And this is most famlie,

famously done through fecal replacement therapy to treat Clostridium difficile.

And so my, the question here is, is how exactly, how exactly, does that work?

How do you actually create or facilitate a new community of bacteria or oth, or

other organisms within, within a human host or with any, within any other host.

And what do we actually know about this?

Is this something that we understand the mechanisms?

Or we just know that it's worked in the past, so we can try,

we can try it in the future.

Right?

And what are some of the other examples of places where this has been tried?

>> We do know something of how bacteria will invade the goat area themselves.

And often time they have passengers with them so they have tempered phages.

And what happens is that the front end of the bacteria invading

the lice releasing nasty substances.

>> Now the phage here is a, is a virus that specializes on bacteria.

>> Thank you, exactly.

Bacteria right? >> So it's, so

it's, it's a co-evolved mutualism between the two.

And so from this understanding we know that our period can even move

into an area which is populated and remove that community and

then just move on and then populate themselves.

So, in some ways we will understand the dynamics of this.

And it's very similar to the dynamics of how an invasive species.

>> Mm-hm. >> Will move into habitat as well.

So the ecology will understand.

I guess the second point, is that we, in many cases, don't understand how we

might use as a therapy, we just know that in some cases, like c difficile, it works.

>> Mm-hm.

Mm-hm.

>> Mary, you were saying earlier that this is something that's [INAUDIBLE]

a long history, in veterinary medicine, right?

>> Certainly cattle have rumens those are large fermentation vents vats that

are full of bacteria.

And if there becomes an imbalance that often occurs if you feed,

if you change the feed rapidly then it changes the populations in, in the gut and

the cows can then not digest their food very well and

the classic therapy is what we call transphenacia.

Take the rumen and content from a healthy cow, and by stomach tube,

just insert it into the cow that's not doing well and, it, it just always works.

>> [LAUGH] So animals [INAUDIBLE] eating their own feces.

People might've even noticed that dogs and

cats do this quite a lot >> [LAUGH].

>> And certainly for some of the predatory animals, that's not uncommon in the wild.

Do you think they're,

they've actually developed this behavior to help themselves, to help this?

I, I think there's probably multiple answers to that.

[LAUGH] But one of them, one of them is yes.

[LAUGH] >> And the other ones are maybe and no.

[LAUGH] >> There may be some other reasons, and

certainly there's >> Yeah, it's the nutritional reasons.

>> You probably can talk to this better than, than I.

But for sp, specific nutrients and not necessarily the-

>> Yeah. The, the bacteria of it.

>> Well, well there is a really good example beyond the animals you're

thinking of, which of course are termites.

Which have evolved a system of proctodeal feeding, where each member of

the community, which maybe is 5 million individuals, or, or something less.

Where individuals actually eat the faeces of other individuals continuously and so

doing share an assortment of protozoa throughout the colony which

have demonstrated benefits of protecting those termites from fungal infections and

from bacterial infection.

So the whole system is set up on this poop feeding which is very effective and

it's a very useful way for them to combat disease.

Circa property is quite common in lack of opinion rather than [CROSSTALK].

>> Yeah.

>> For example, but we've always assumed that,

that has to do with increased ways of getting the nutrients out of the.

>> Yeah.

>> Out of the food.

>> Mm.

>> But in fact there might be a second.

>> Sure thing.

>> Yeah.

>> So, and we, we've heard a lot about human therapies based on,

on, on, on effectively coprophagy, right?

I mean fecal replacement therapy in, in, in the gut.

But there are lots of parts in our body that are protected by a microbiome, right?

There's, we have microbiome in our skin, we have microbiome in our mouth,

and there's been discussion of, of, of people with gingivitis having to replace

the microbiome in their mouth following, Bacterial treatment because

they want to receive that with a healthy microbiome right and, and

Eric's work is focused on the microbiome of the upper respiratory tract.

And so from your work, I mean,

how far away do you think we are from an understanding that could allow us to

use those kinds of therapies in the respiratory tract.

>> Yeah, so one of the reasons why I chose the respiratory tract is,

is because it's relatively simple and

relatively constant compared to the GI tract which is, you know, it's so dense.

I think people fail to understand how many bacteria are under there and

how diverse it is from one region to another and how much

competition there is between bacteria, but if we, if we can begin to understand-

Those kinds of competitions and the ecosystems that are set up

in a relatively simple system like the respiratory system,

where there, there isn't changing food everyday, and, or as much.

then, then maybe we can hope to, to understand.

You know, it's going to be, it's biology, it's complex.

>> Right. But if I understand your work correctly.

The [INAUDIBLE] is protecting the repository [INAUDIBLE] from the invasion

of things that we would recognize as pathogens, things that would make us sick.

So, to what extent is the use of anti-bodies where we take drugs,

that are going to fake other bacterial antibodies.

To what extent is that

making us vulnerable to further infections down the road?

>> So it's certainly true that the respiratory [INAUDIBLE] affect our

susceptibility to, to some but we, we don't know.

It may protect us against some, it probably does.

It may facilitate infection by others and

so, it again, that's going to be very complex.

And, and it's going to be on a case by case basis and

so that's a great question and you know?

>> Is it possible that frequent antibiotic users for

example would be more prone to respiratory infection?

That's certainly possible.

And I would suggest it would be particular respiratory infections.

Not respiratory infections in general, but particular types.

>> I'd asked a related question for me.

Is there something that communities do in order to promote a positive

micro-biome which is absent from what the medical establishment might do?

I mean have we seen this in history that people would in some way obviously,

a good healthy diet one might imagine would promote better good flora,

have people done that in anyway in, in [INAUDIBLE].

>> Are you talking about kissing?

>> Not kissing, no.

[LAUGH] [CROSSTALK] [LAUGH].

>> No, our children were born in Denmark.

And there was a lot of,

about all kids with bacterial diseases of the respiratory tract.

And their solution was to simply go out into the cold a lot.

Because it had some physical changes which would condense the mucus, was the logic.

And they, it's a controversial.

Subscription of antibodies anywhere in the developed world.

And it may be I'm just wondering if there's some you know, tried and

tested [CROSSTALK].

>> In the wilds, it's not that I'm aware of.

But certainly different cultures have dramatically different approaches to,

well, different more, social mores.

Is about [INAUDIBLE].

[LAUGH].

>> How does this affect what's resident?

>> It's fascinating.

In Asia, people have very different mucal components.

I mean, there's a genetic difference in the mucus production in Asia

in the ear and nose compared to people from Europe which is fascinating.

>> I would expect that if changes with humidity and potentially with season.

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

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