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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?
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>> 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.
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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.
Dr. Ottar N. BjornstadProfessor of Entomology and Biology
Dr. Rachel A. SmithAssociate Professor
Dr. Mary L. PossProfessor of Biology
Dr. David P. HughesAssistant Professor of Entomology and Biology
Dr. Peter HudsonWillaman Professor of Biology
Dr. Matthew FerrariAssistant Professor of Biology
Dr. Andrew ReadAlumni Professor in the Biological Sciences, and Professor of Entomology
Dr. Marcel SalathéAssistant Professor of Biology
