OpenBiome is a nonprofit organization in

Somerville, Massachusetts Somerville ( ) is a city located directly to the northwest of Boston, and north of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a total population of 81, ...

, which operates a public stool bank and supports research on the

human microbiome The human microbiome is the aggregate of all microbiota that reside on or within human tissues and biofluids along with the corresponding anatomical sites in which they reside, including the skin, mammary glands, seminal fluid, uterus, ovarian ...

History

OpenBiome distributes material to

hospital A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emerge ...

s and clinics to support the treatment of ''

C. difficile ''Clostridioides difficile'' ( syn. ''Clostridium difficile'') is a bacterium that is well known for causing serious diarrheal infections, and may also cause colon cancer. Also known as ''C. difficile'', or ''C. diff'' (), is Gram-positive spe ...

'', the most common pathogen causing hospital-acquired infection in the U.S. OpenBiome provides frozen preparations of screened and filtered human stool for use in

fecal microbiota transplantation 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. FMT is an effective treatment for ''Clostridioides diffici ...

(FMT) therapies. OpenBiome can provide clinicians with three different formulations: a high-concentration "FMP 30" formulation for delivery via the upper

gastrointestinal tract The gastrointestinal tract (GI tract, digestive tract, alimentary canal) is the tract or passageway of the digestive system that leads from the mouth to the anus. The GI tract contains all the major organ (biology), organs of the digestive syste ...

, a lower-concentration "FMP 250" for delivery via the lower gastrointestinal tract, and, as of October 2015, a capsule formulation. As of March 2017, OpenBiome had provided over 20,000 treatments to 50 states and 7 countries. In 2015, OpenBiome announced the launch of PersonalBiome, a stool banking program through which individuals could store their stool for future use in fecal transplantation after microbial dysbiosis. OpenBiome was founded in 2012 by Mark Smith, a microbiology student at MIT, and James Burgess, an MBA student at the

MIT Sloan School of Management The MIT Sloan School of Management (MIT Sloan or Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs, ...

. It is the first public stool bank, and was founded to facilitate use of FMT. The logistical burdens associated with screening and processing fecal material have made it difficult for clinicians to offer FMT to patients with recurrent ''C. difficile'' infections.

References

External links

Official Website
{{Microbiota Feces Organizations established in 2012 Health charities in the United States Charities based in Massachusetts Medical and health organizations based in Massachusetts 2012 establishments in Massachusetts