In the article “ Using Gut Bacteria to Fight Diarrhea”, microbiologist Trevor Lawley of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and his colleagues examined Clostridium difficile infection in mice. In humans, C. difficile is a significant pathogen in hostpitals and nursing homes, causing nearly 336,000 infections and 14,000 deaths a year in the United States. Clostridium difficile is an anaerobic, gram-positive bacterium that is the major cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea.
Treatment with antiobiotics can be effective, however roughly 25% of infected people relapse. This relapse can be credited to the bacterium’s ability to produce spores. These spores are very resilient and can survive antibiotics treatment among other things. When patients are treated with antibiotics, their gut's normal microbial community will be killed. This can leave the patient worse of, clearing the way for C. difficile to resettle and causing diarrhea. In the past, the controversial method of inserting ground-up and filtered fecal material from a healthy person into a person infected with C. difficile has been successful.
Attempting to find a more effective way to treat patients Lawley and his colleges cultured the fecal material found to cure the mice into 18 different strains. After mixing and matching different combinations, Lawley found the combination of 6 different kinds of bacteria to cure the mice. The hope is that in the future, scientists will be able to develop a certain mix of bacteria that work for humans.