Viral Con Foils Drug-Resistant Microbes, May Nix Need For Poop Transplants (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on Saturday February 27, 2016 @04:03AM from the courtesy-flush dept.

schwit1 writes: The researchers, led by immunologists at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, got started on the idea of harnessing a viral decoy knowing that such germs normally manipulate and prune the gut microbiome. The community of viruses that bustle in human guts -- called the virome or microvirome -- trigger anti-microbial immune responses that can put the microbial communities on lock down, preventing new microbes from colonizing. Such a state of "colonization resistance" in the gut could thwart harmful germs from moving in, particularly when the microbiome is imbalanced and vulnerable after antibiotic treatments, the researchers hypothesized -- and they found they were right.

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Re:I think I understand TFS... by ShanghaiBill · 2016-02-27 05:55 · Score: 4, Informative

I think it's talking about gut bacteria and using highly resistant beneficial bacteria to prevent harmful bacteria moving in
No. The summary is so badly written that hard to tell what it is about, but the researchers tricked the mouse immune system into suppressing gut viruses so that the beneficial bacteria could recover faster after antibiotics. Here is a link to the paper.

But what is a "Poop transplant"?
Fecal bacteriotherapy