It could be because we have a 12-year-old boy in the house or maybe it’s because we’ve been told that our gut may be our true brain. But over on Green Prophet we’ve been following the development of fecal transplants for the last decade. So we love it when news develops in his space: Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and collaborators have developed a breakthrough technology that can track beneficial bacteria after fecal microbiota transplants (FMT). Basically, they can figure out whose donor “poo” works the best in transplants. (And yes, you can donate your stool samples and get paid!)

The tool — a mix of long-read DNA sequencing and computational wizardry called LongTrack — reveals which donor microbes take root, how they evolve, and how they might hold the key to safer, more targeted microbiome therapies.

Published in Nature Microbiology (October 22), the study helps scientists follow donor bacteria for up to five years after fecal transplant — identifying which strains thrive, which mutate, and which might be responsible for lasting recovery in patients treated for infections like C. difficile or inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

“Our findings bring us closer to precision medicine for the microbiome,” said Professor Gang Fang, senior author of the study.

Why we need fecal transplants

Antibiotics, processed diets, and chronic stress have left many people’s internal ecosystems stripped of the microbes that keep digestion, immunity, and even mood in balance. Fecal microbiota transplants — the medical term for taking stool from a healthy person and putting it into a sick one — sound gross, but they’ve already saved lives by restoring gut flora after antibiotic-resistant infections.

Still, until now, no one really knew which microbes made the magic happen or how to ensure consistency from donor to donor. That uncertainty — plus the “ick factor” — has limited the acceptance of FMTs beyond clinical settings.

Thanks to studies like Mount Sinai’s, the future of gut therapy could look less like brown smoothies and more like engineered microbiome capsules. Instead of whole stool donations, researchers are isolating and then culturing the exact bacterial strains that heal. They can grow an entire medicine from one person’s poop. Should we call the union? Or should donors be asking for shit tickets or royalties?

A few pioneering companies are already in the space:

Rebiotix (acquired by Ferring Pharmaceuticals) – developers of Rebyota, the first FDA-approved microbiota-based therapy to prevent recurrent C. difficile infection.

OpenBiome – a nonprofit stool bank supplying screened donor material to hospitals and researchers, helping standardize FMT safety.

Seres Therapeutics – creators of Vowst, an oral capsule that delivers healthy bacteria without the need for invasive transplants.

Together, they’re turning what was once a fringe medical experiment into a $1-billion-plus bio-innovation industry.

The ick factor: get over it

Yes, it’s poop. But it’s also the most biodiverse material your body produces — a living cluster of bacteria and enzymes that quietly maintain human health. Just as blood donations sustain trauma patients, stool donations can rebuild lives. The process is far less invasive than it sounds: donors provide a sample, labs screen for pathogens, and the material is processed into sterile therapeutic preparations.

So, could your microbiome be gold-standard and worth more than Bitcoin?

If you’re young, active, eat whole foods, and haven’t taken antibiotics recently, chances are your gut community is robust — and possibly valuable. Stool donors can receive compensation and, more importantly, contribute to the next generation of microbiome-based medicine.

With Mount Sinai’s LongTrack system showing which bacteria truly stick around — and biotech startups turning fecal matter into precision medicine — donor poop is officially having its moment.

The post 💩 Who Has the Healthiest Donor Poo? Maybe You Do. appeared first on Green Prophet.

In a scientific win for poop, a new phase 3 trial out of Norway found that fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT)—yes, a literal poop enema—performed slightly better than the go-to antibiotic vancomycin in treating Clostridioides difficile infections (CDI).

Researchers found FMT to be noninferior (that’s doctor-speak for “basically just as good, or a bit better”) and possibly a gentler first-line treatment than antibiotics. This could be a game-changer in how we treat gut chaos—and a step toward embracing the full healing power of… other people’s poop.

Related: Seres and Nestle makes poop pills to replace antibiotics

If this sounds familiar, that’s because Green Prophet has been covering the rise of fecal transplants like a proud microbiome mama. From our early report on how gut bacteria can control your mood (and maybe your destiny) to the Israeli startup making synthetic poop capsules for people who’d rather swallow than squirt, we’ve been watching this digestive revolution unfold. But we prefer before you rush to medicine, to eat what fermentation doc, Sandor Katz recommends –– and that’s eating fermented food.

Now, with Norwegian researchers giving the royal flush to vancomycin, we may soon be saying goodbye to antibiotics and hello to artisanal, farm-to-bum therapies.

Related: Wombats have cube-shaped poop

Let’s not forget the bigger message here: modern medicine is slowly realizing what your grandmother and your compost bin always knew—shit matters. Whether you’re nurturing your gut with probiotic yogurt or contemplating a fresh stool smoothie, the path to health might not be lined with roses, but with microbes.

As the future of medicine continues to smell a little funny, we’ll keep digging into the science of sustainable solutions—one scoop at a time. ?

The post Poo beats pills? Norway backs poop transplant as safer treatment for gut-wrecking infection appeared first on Green Prophet.

A new study shows that oral fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is a feasible and safe addition to preventing graft-versus-host disease in patients undergoing stem cell transplantation for blood cancers. Nestle launched a fecal pill in 2023. And we already reported on how poop pills made by Seres are good for the gut biome.

The study, published Jan. 25 in Nature Communications, is part of a phase 2 clinical trial led by clinicians at Fred Hutch Cancer Center. The study builds on earlier research of the role of the gut microbiome in helping patients recover after stem cell transplantation.

“The gut microbiome is an organ in itself, and it is connected to the immune system,” said lead author Armin Rashidi, MD, PhD, a medical oncologist at Fred Hutch. “Since the process of stem cell transplantation damages the gut microbiome, we want to see if FMT will help restore microbial diversity and promote the beneficial bacterial species that support a healthy immune system.”

The study included 20 patients who underwent allogeneic stem cell transplantations for various blood disorders including blood cancers. They then received FMT via oral capsules taken three times a day for seven days. The capsules contained a purified community of microbes derived from stool samples from three healthy donors.

Fecal microbiota transplant (FMT), also known as a stool transplant, is the process of transferring fecal bacteria and other microbes from a healthy individual into another individual. During a normal vaginal birth, mothers pass stool samples to their children providing them gut immunity in the early days of life.

The capsules were manufactured by the University of Minnesota Microbiota Therapeutics Program in accordance with the FDA-approved investigational protocols and strict pharmaceutical standards.

One fecal donor had the most powerful poop in the study.

“Although the capsules were originally developed for treatment of recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection, they are now being investigated for a multitude of different indications,” said Alexander Khoruts, MD, coauthor of the paper and a gastroenterologist at the University of Minnesota Medical School. “Unlike treatment of C. difficile, most indications require optimized formulations of gut microbes.

“The Fred Hutch trial illustrates this next phase in the development of donor-derived microbial therapeutics.”

Key Findings:

• Donor Differences Matter: The trial analyzed three different FMT donors and found notable differences in how well each one established itself in the recipient. Donor 3 emerged as the most effective, achieving a 67% microbiota engraftment rate. This means of all the microbes after FMT whose origin could be determined with certainty, 67% came from the donor and the remaining were from the patient. This “winning” donor was characterized by high levels of Bifidobacterium adolescentis, a beneficial microbe.

• Microbiota Diversity Influences Success: Consistent with prior research, the study found that lower pre-FMT microbiota diversity in patients was associated with better donor microbiota engraftment. This suggests that less diverse pre-FMT gut environments may make it easier for transplanted microbes to establish themselves.

• FMT is Safe: FMT was shown to be safe even in highly immunocompromised patients. The transfer of millions of live microbes to the patient did not cause any infections, likely because they were “healthy” microbes from a healthy donor. Engraftment reached 100% for some microbial species known to support overall gut health and protect against graft-versus-host disease.

“Our study shows that when done following proper regulation in a clinical trial, FMT is safe,” Rashidi said. “There had been concerns of giving live microbes to people who are immunocompromised, but this study and our 2023 study before it show no major toxicity, which should be reassuring to patients and their families.”

“The hope of using FMT with people receiving stem cell transplants is that FMT will help prevent acute GVHD without adding more immunosuppression, improve quality of life, and decrease mortality after transplant,” Rashidi said. “Our findings published in Nature Communications give another evidence-based example of how the gut microbiome can be used to improve human health.”

Other clinical trials investigating fecal transplants focus on treatments for autism, colitis, inflammatory bowel disease, and irritable bowel syndrome.

In 2023, the U.S. FDA approved oral FMT to treat an infectious form of diarrhea.

Get paid to poop?

GoodNature company collects poop from healthy people, which is then used to create therapies and medical treatments for patients with stomach-related infections. They pay them to poop.

Jennie Starr is the Marketing and Communication Director for GoodNature, which is owned by Seres Therapeutics. “It all has to be done here, and that’s intentional,” said Starr. “We see you in person, so we have control over the materials you provide.”

Prospective donors can see if they’re eligible by filling out an online questionnaire at goodnatureprogram.com. They must then pass a phone interview and have a few stool samples taken to see if they qualify. Approved donors can then decide how many times they want to stop by every week to make a deposit, earning between $25 and $75 per visit.

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