The Microbiome Insights team is pleased to be exhibiting at the 4th Annual Translational Microbiome Conference in Boston! The first day of the main program was filled with talks that covered an excellent breadth of topics having to do with the microbiome field.
Beyond sequencing
A highlight of the morning was a lecture by Peter Christey (Co-Founder and CEO of General Automation Lab Technologies, or GALT) on “Going Beyond Sequencing - New Research Tools in the Era of the Microbiome”. Christey explained that next-generation sequencing provides an amazing window into the microbiome, but it does have its limitations. Comparing cultures with culture-independent techniques on the same sample shows that adding a small cultivation step in the process allows observation of many more OTUs per sample. Christey argued that for the best insights, a mix of old and new techniques is necessary—both next-generation sequencing and wet lab techniques.
Precision medicine
Morten L. Isaksen (CEO of Bio-Me AS) then spoke about “A Microbiome-based Approach to Precision Medicine and Personalized Nutrition”. Isaksen described GutCheck—a gut health test that can be combined with data from biobanks that are available. The company links a person’s profile with several medical databases to gain insights on how the microbiome relates to drug consumption and other factors.
Main track: Skin microbiome & cancer immunotherapies
From there, the sessions separated into two tracks: a main track and a consumer track. In the main track, audience members heard from Travis Whitfill (Co-Founder and CSO of Azitra, Inc) on “Translational Challenges in the Skin Microbiome”. Whitfill emphasized the need to eliminate the idea of ‘good’ bacteria and ‘bad’ bacteria, arguing the importance of knowing bacterial strain characteristics.
Vancheswaran Gopalakrishnan ( Translational Scientist, Computational & Analytics Support, & MD at Anderson Cancer Center, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston) spoke about a hot area: “Impact of Microbiome on Immunotherapy Response”. Gopalakrishnan is working with Seres Therapeutics to identify whether fecal microbiota transplantation, compared to probiotics or lifestyle changes, is the best way of shifting the microbiome into a state associated with a favorable response to cancer immunotherapies. This talk was followed by a panel with Gopalakrishnan and others on immunotherapies and the microbiome, moderated by Take Ogawa (Director, Business Development, Second Genome). Panelists discussed the need to find out what is happening mechanistically in the individuals who respond favorably to immunotherapies. Bernat Olle (CEO, Vedanta Biosciences) outlined the need for harmonizing the observations on which microbe communities might drive the response.
Gut microbiome modulation
Continuing after the lunch break, the talks in the main track turned to microbiome modulation. Mark Smith (CEO, Finch Therapeutics) presented on “Reverse Translation for Therapeutic Development in the Human Microbiome”. He described the dual approach of delivering entire microbial communities to individuals in order to have immediate efficacy, and then working to modulate the microbiome over time.
Next, Assaf Oron (CBO, BiomX) spoke about “A Novel Therapeutic Approach To IBD Through Microbiome Modulation”. Oron explained some individuals with IBD have bacteria residing in the body that bring about flare-ups. So when they come into the clinic they are asked to take a fecal sample; the company tests the pro-inflammatory bacteria and then introduce a phage to eradicate them. They take into account geography, microbiome, and clinical phenotype. At present, a topical gel containing a customized phage cocktail to modulate the skin microbiome is going through clinical trials.
Later in the day, David Kyle (CSO, Evolve Biosystems) spoke about going “From Dysbiosis to Recovery in the Infant Gut Microbiome”. He covered the differences observed in the microbiomes of infants today as compared to previous decades, and how the company is developing solutions to help human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) be digested by bacteria in the infant digestive tract, thereby elevating the beneficial short-chain fatty acids acetate and lactate in the i
