Overview

• A trial at London’s Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals involved 41 patients receiving capsules of freeze-dried stool from healthy donors.
• Participants retained donor bacteria in their bowels for at least a month, showing promising signals of superbug reduction.
• The pills are designed to outcompete antibiotic-resistant pathogens in the gut by supplying beneficial microbial communities.
• Researchers say larger-scale clinical trials are needed to confirm efficacy and safety before wider use.
• The MHRA reports over 450 microbiome-based therapies in development, raising prospects of microbiome treatments supplanting antibiotics.