Scholarly Publications

The SARS-CoV-2 virus spreading across the world has led to surges of COVID-19 illness, hospitalizations, and death. The complex and multifaceted pathophysiology of life-threatening COVID-19 illness including viral mediated organ damage, cytokine storm, and thrombosis warrants early interventions to address all components of the devastating illness. In countries where therapeutic nihilism is prevalent, patients endure escalating symptoms and without early treatment can succumb to delayed in-hospital care and death. Prompt early initiation of sequenced multidrug therapy (SMDT) is a widely and currently available solution to stem the tide of hospitalizations and death. A multipronged therapeutic approach includes...

The gut microbiome profile of a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and co-occurring gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms was compared to that of her healthy triplet siblings to determine if she exhibited intestinal dysbiosis. Shotgun metagenomic sequencing was performed in individual fecal samples, and relative microbial abundance and diversity was determined. Microbial diversity was lower in sibling #3, coupled with a higher Bacteroidetes/Firmicutes ratio, a lower relative abundance of Actinobacteria, and an increased relative abundance of Proteobacteria. Our findings are suggestive of gut dysbiosis in a child with ASD and co-occurring GI symptoms, compared to her two healthy triplet siblings.

Eosinophilic gastritis and duodenitis are characterized by gastrointestinal mucosal eosinophilia, chronic symptoms, impaired quality of life, and a lack of adequate treatments. Mast-cell activity may contribute to the pathogenesis of the conditions. AK002 (lirentelimab) is an anti–Siglec-8 antibody that depletes eosinophils and inhibits mast cells and that has shown potential in animal models as a treatment for eosinophilic gastritis and duodenitis.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most common form of dementia, is a leading cause of death and a major cause of morbidity in older people. The disease is characterized by progressive memory loss, cognitive impairment, and the cerebral accumulation of amyloid-b peptide. Given the health and economic impacts of AD, treatments that target the underlying etiology of AD or modify the course of the disease are of significant interest. The gut microbiome has been increasingly implicated  [...]

Toxigenic Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is the most common cause of nosocomial disease in the United States, however, its prevalence in the general population is poorly understood. In this study we sought to determine the presence of Clostridioides difficile colonizing a representative sample of 119 asymptomatic adult volunteers, 12 of which were physicians treating patients with CDI. Methods: Next generation sequencing (NGS) was performed on fecal samples from [...]

Pathogenic Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile) is the most common cause of nosocomial infection in the United States. However, the prevalence of C. difficile colonization in the general population is poorly understood. We sought to determine the presence and nature of various C. difficile strains colonizing a representative sample of 17 asymptomatic adult volunteers, consisting of 10 healthy and 7 stable Crohn's patients.

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Sabine Hazan, MD,  Series Editor

In this article, we discuss further understanding the gut microbiome along with its effect on metabolites and cardiovascular health. This understanding will give us opportunities to develop new test and therapeutic approaches to arteriosclerosis. In the future, stool transplantation with lean or low risk for cardiovascular disease microflora may be a way of treating patients who are susceptible to [...]

Sabine Hazan, MD,  Series Editor

There is a growing body of research suggesting that obesity, metabolic syndrome, and insulin resistance are associated with predictable phyla and gene level compositional changes in the intestinal microbiome of humans and mice. With a better understanding of these changes, we can develop new, robust therapeutic strategies. In this article, we will briefly discuss some of the definitive research related to  [...]

Sabine Hazan, MD,  Series Editor

A new, emerging paradigm suggests that the susceptibility, severity, and duration of some diseases, even some previously thought to be independent of microbial involvement, are mediated by a complex interplay of host and microbe genomes. Already, nearly 10 million different microbial genes have been isolated from the human gut. In this series, we aim to shed light on some of the most promising research to date that [...]

Sabine Hazan, MD,  Series Editor

An IBD patient’s quality of life can be significantly diminished when treated with conventional therapies. However, like the trend of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) for the treatment of Clostridium difficile infection, there is promising evidence that a similar approach will prove efficacious in treating UC and Crohn’s, especially given the increasingly predictable intestinal microbiome perturbation 

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Sabine Hazan, MD,  Series Editor

Simply and elegantly defined by Lynch and Pedersen in their December 2016 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, a microbiome is the collection of all genomes of microbes in an ecosystem. In the context of human beings and our health, it is the vastly diverse genetic information observable in the microbes colonizing the distal GI tract.  Historically, the study of human microbiology has been one of a [...]

Background Clostridium difficile infection is the most common health-care-associated infection in the USA. We assessed the safety and efficacy of ridinilazole versus vancomycin for treatment of C difficile infection. Methods We did a phase 2, randomised, double-blind, active-controlled, non-inferiority study. Participants with signs and symptoms of C difficile infection and a positive diagnostic test result were recruited from 33 centres in the USA and Canada and randomly assigned (1:1) [...]