\n <\/p>\n
As Mathilde Poyet ushers me through the Global Microbiome Conservancy\u2019s laboratory in Kiel, Germany, I\u2019m met with all sorts of state-of-the-art equipment. It\u2019s an impressive facility, with typical lab apparatus, such as incubators, the latest sequencing devices and anaerobic chambers for culturing bacteria. But the most important stuff in the lab is stored in a freezer at \u221280 \u00baC. The samples are so crucial that there is a back-up battery system \u2014 if the electricity to the freezers goes off, the materials will remain intact. These test-tube samples aren\u2019t some immortality serum or cancer-fighting bacteria: they\u2019re faeces.<\/p>\n
To be precise, they\u2019re suspended stool samples and bacteria that have been cultured from faeces. But at one point, this was poo that Poyet and her colleagues, including her partner Mathieu Groussin, had collected as part of their work for the Global Microbiome Conservancy (GMbC), of which Groussin is a co-founder. Poyet likes to call the project their \u201cfirst baby\u201d (one of their real babies, their infant daughter Aelis, joins us in their office as we speak).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen all sorts of poop across the Bristol stool scale \u2014 all shapes, all sizes, all colours,\u201d says Poyet, referring to the stool classification chart physicians use to assess digestive issues.<\/p>\n
Poyet and Groussin\u2019s work is predicated on the idea that faeces provide an ideal snapshot of the human gut microbiome: the genetic content of the community of organisms found in intestines. This differs across populations1 and can serve as a health indicator. Most research on the human gut microbiome focuses on populations of European descent. But the GMbC solicits samples that are more globally representative. The samples in the freezer come from as far afield as Ghana, Tanzania, Finland and Thailand.<\/p>\n
Samples being collected and frozen for the GMbC\u2019s biobank of waste products.<\/span>Credit: F. Rondon\/Global Microbiome Conservancy<\/span><\/p>\n Over the past nine years of the programme, the team has sampled 50 populations spanning 19 countries. Its members have worked with local scientists, ethics boards and communities to collect the samples, and have taken cars, boats, helicopters and even quadbikes to sample sites. Back in the lab, researchers analyse the stool content, sequence the genetic material of bacteria cultured from samples and store the live samples in their biobank.<\/p>\n To outsiders, taking stool samples constantly might seem \u2014 and smell \u2014 disgusting. In Kiel, the scientists occasionally make \u201cpoop soup\u201d, using a vessel called a bioreactor to see the effects of different scenarios on procured bacteria. They do this only a few times a year, because the process can be long and expensive, and the aromas pungent, prompting their more-conventional floor mates to give the workspace the nickname \u201csmelly lab\u201d.<\/p>\n But faeces provide a remarkable window into human health. \u201cIt\u2019s our best way to interrogate what\u2019s in the gut from healthy people,\u201d says Groussin. \u201cIt\u2019s a little bit gross, but that\u2019s just our best way to access this incredible and important biodiversity.\u201d<\/p>\n With the microbiome a buzzy research topic, other scientists around the globe are taking samples to study it themselves. And as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, wastewater analysis is a valuable public-health tool \u2014 providing scientists with the means to monitor pathogens in the population before an infection surges.<\/p>\n \u201cThe waste we put into the environment is really data rich,\u201d says Janelle Thompson, an environmental microbiologist at Nanyang Technological University\u2019s Asian School of the Environment in Singapore. Thompson and her team sample Singapore\u2019s wastewater to detect harmful microorganisms in the environment, looking for biological \u201csignals\u201d from organisms or viruses that are shed from the human body.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can identify where signals are occurring and follow them over time to see when they\u2019re occurring,\u201d she explains. For example, in 2021 and 2022, Thompson and her colleagues were able to identify variants of concern for the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 at university campus sites and treatment plants2. This was long before these variants became dominant, indicating \u201cminimal silent circulation\u201d, according to the team.<\/p>\n The implications of research into human waste span several scientific disciplines. Amid a global fertilizer shortage, some scientists (and farmers) are looking to urine as fertilizer, owing to its nitrogen content. A study in Nature Water3, published earlier this year by a group of researchers at Stanford University, California, created a prototype system that extracts nutrients from urine. The team estimates that its design could generate up to US$4.13 per kilogram of nitrogen recovered. And research published in 20204 shows that urine-based fertilizer might also help to conserve other resources, reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and water use.<\/p>\n A researcher pours urine-based fertilizer into a bottle.<\/span>Credit: Marcin Szczepanski\/Lead Multimedia Storyteller, Michigan Engineering<\/span><\/p>\n As well as a public-health bellwether, stool samples are being used in the development of a potentially life-saving process to treat infections of Clostridium difficile, through transferring healthy faecal bacteria and other microbes from one host to another.<\/p>\n C. difficile infections are \u201creally caused by a disturbed microbiota\u201d, explains Josbert Keller, a gastroenterologist at the Haaglanden Medical Centre in The Hague, the Netherlands. Keller was part of a group that published an early clinical trial5 into the effectiveness of faecal transfers, also known as faecal microbiota transplants, in 2013. \u201cIf the patient is not able to restore this microbiota, then it can recur and recur, and that\u2019s the moment that faecal microbiota transplants can really cure a patient.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, faecal transfers are being looked at as a way to treat obesity6, type 2 diabetes7, Parkinson\u2019s disease8 and other conditions.<\/p>\n How to fix a gut microbiome ravaged by antibiotics<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Something that\u2019s often perceived as disgusting can actually have a lot of intrinsic value, says Bryn Nelson, whose 2022 book Flush: The Remarkable Science of an Unlikely Treasure was described by its publisher as \u201can urgent exploration of the world\u2019s single most squandered natural resource\u201d. As part of the research and writing process, the former microbiologist spent years looking at the applications of faeces \u2014 and found at least 24 fields that take important information from what we consider waste products. Referring to excrement\u2019s \u2018ick\u2019 factor, he says: \u201cWe just have to kind of get past that hurdle to discover all the information that it contains.\u201d<\/p>\n Poyet comes from a wet-lab background. For her PhD, she studied the fruit fly Drosophila suzukii and often spent full days dissecting specimens of the insect. Her research now involves sifting through stool samples to access bacteria that are not exposed to oxygen. Some samples are more foul than others, she says, adding: \u201cWhat is really gross when working with stool sample is actually when people don\u2019t digest the food, and you can find food almost intact in the stool. I really don\u2019t like it.\u201d<\/p>\n For Thompson, working with waste materials was also a natural fit. \u201cI\u2019ve always just been fascinated by the microbial world and then accessing it for human benefit,\u201d she says. \u201cMicrobes are slimy, they can be smelly, but I don\u2019t find them gross.\u201d<\/p>\n Stools and urine are also something that you get desensitized to over time. Chong Chun Wie, a microbiome researcher at Monash University Malaysia in Subang Jaya, oversees stool-sample collection as part of his work on the human microbiome. His research looks at how the gut microbiome differs across ethnic groups9 in the region. Unlike Poyet and Groussin, he is not involved in fieldwork. Instead, bottles are sent to donors who deposit their samples at home, but there is still handling to be done in the lab.<\/p>\n \u201cThe more you do it, the more you just get used to it because it\u2019s something you do routinely,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Your friends shape your microbiome \u2014 and so do their friends<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Marissa Ledger, a medical microbiology resident at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, studies the history of parasite infections. Ancient fossilized poo samples \u2014 decayed organic components that resemble soil \u2014 can be incredibly valuable in archaeology and palaeontology. Ledger\u2019s undergraduate training was in anthropology, studying skeletal remains. She soon learnt that studying parasites in preserved faecal matter is a better way to chronicle infectious diseases throughout human history, likening the fossilized stools to time capsules that can yield nuanced details about infections and diets in a community.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I decided that I wanted to look at parasite infections, understanding that they should have been a huge contributor to disease in the past, I was more like, \u2018That\u2019s a really cool goal,\u201d she says. \u201cI never really kind of thought of it as gross until I had the response of people talking to me saying, \u2018You study ancient poo? That\u2019s crazy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s a stronger cultural taboo towards poo than towards pee, observes Marine Legrand, an anthropologist at OCAPI, an interdisciplinary action and research programme in Paris that looks at ways of recycling human waste, such as by using urine as fertilizer. Although funding is available for research on faeces, it seems to be directed more towards medical than agricultural applications. \u201cWhen we look for funds, it\u2019s easier to find funds to work on pee than to work on poo.\u201d<\/p>\n As Mathilde Poyet ushers me through the Global Microbiome Conservancy\u2019s laboratory in Kiel, Germany, I\u2019m met with all sorts of state-of-the-art equipment. It\u2019s an impressive facility, with typical lab apparatus, such as incubators, the latest sequencing devices and anaerobic chambers for culturing bacteria. But the most important stuff in the lab is stored in a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[19648,19649,17702,5265,516],"class_list":{"0":"post-34635","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-harness","9":"tag-pee","10":"tag-poo","11":"tag-researchers","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}A treasure trove for science<\/h2>\n
Getting into the field<\/h2>\n
The public restroom<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"