Microbiome therapy shows promise against bloodstream infections in early trial

· Health

Researchers at City of Hope and collaborators have pioneered a new approach to preventing dangerous bloodstream infections in patients receiving donor stem cell transplants for blood cancers. The first-of-its-kind therapy delivers 16 carefully selected beneficial bacteria designed to restore the microbiome and fight harmful infection. Bloodstream infections are a major risk for transplant recipients whose immune systems are suppressed by conditioning treatment. The early trial is the first test of this approach, so efficacy and safety in larger populations are not yet established. The work sits within the broader push to use microbiome-based products as preventive medicine.

Why it matters：A preventive microbiome product for immunocompromised transplant patients would open a new use category for live biotherapeutics, a field still mostly experimental.

Key points

  • The therapy delivers 16 selected beneficial bacteria.
  • It targets patients receiving donor stem cell transplants for blood cancers.
  • The trial is described as first-of-its-kind.

Sources (original reporting)

More stories from this day