We have trillions of bacteria living within our gut that break down our food, ward off disease, and keep our bodies healthy. But when that equilibrium is destroyed — a condition termed dysbiosis — it spawns debilitating illness that includes inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, cancer, and even depression. This report investigates how research and technology are attempting to cure dysbiosis with innovation.
Researchers have reviewed more than 8,000 patents that have proceeded over the past two decades to find out what scientists and companies are creating solutions from. They cover intelligent probiotics, prebiotics, friendly diets to even fecal microbiota transplants on a highly advanced scale. America is at the forefront of the trend with companies creating bacteria-based treatments to rebalance the gut and improve immunity. New diagnostics like DNA scanning for early detection of microbial imbalance are patented too.
Two advanced examples are, first, gene-editing technologies like CRISPR being used to design bacteria that could repair the gut or complement treatments like cancer immunotherapy. The second example is T-cell engineering that responds to gut cues — and with the potential for individualized treatments.
In addition, the article also rings a warning bell on ethical concerns: many of the outlined innovations are expensive, at times uncontrolled, and unavailable to everyone. Policy and research need to work in harmony from now on to ensure the life-altering drugs become safe, just, and accessible.
Full text: Reda El Boukhari, Maima Matin, Latifa Bouissane, Michał Ławiński, Oleh Lushchak, Rajeev K. Singla, Michel-Edwar Mickael, Jordi Mayneris-Perxachs, Maria Eleni Grafakou, Shuhua Xu, Bowen Liu, Jiayi Guan, Andrzej Półtorak, Arkadiusz Szpicer, Agnieszka Wierzbicka, Nikolay T. Tzvetkov, Maciej Banach, Jarosław Olav Horbańczuk, Artur Jóźwik…, Atanas G. Atanasov, Enhancing human gut health: Global innovations in dysbiosis management, iMeta. https://doi.org/10.1002/imt2.70028.