The Gut Microbiome
Trillions of healthy bacteria live inside the human gut. It is estimated that the number of microbes reach 10^12 per gram in the human large intestine (luminal content of the colon) where these bacteria play a crucial role both in physiology and health as well as influence the cause of disease. The gut microbiome performs a number of crucial functions for the host from helping to digest our food, to produce vitamins and priming our immune system to tolerance - thus, these vast numbers of bacteria live in a complex symbioses with their host.
In healthy individuals the human microbiome is dominated by two large Phyla: Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes with smaller representations from Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria. In some cases the body reacts badly to its own bacteria, which can lead to immune stimulation and gut inflammation. There is an increasing understanding that perturbations and large changes in the microbiome (dysbiosis) are associated with human disease and that specifically addressing the human gut microbiome composition can represent an attractive medical and pharmacological avenue.
We aim to be able to make targeted microbiome engineering with our CRISPR-based precision medicines.