Focus | Health |
---|---|
Location | |
Key people | Carolyn Edelstein |
Website |
www |
OpenBiome is a nonprofit organization in Somerville, Massachusetts, which operates a public stool bank and supports research on the human microbiome.
OpenBiome distributes material to hospitals and clinics to support the treatment of C. difficile, the most common pathogen causing hospital-acquired infection in the U.S. [1] OpenBiome provides frozen preparations of screened and filtered human stool for use in fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) therapies. OpenBiome can provide clinicians with three different formulations: a high-concentration "FMP 30" formulation for delivery via the upper gastrointestinal tract, 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. [2]
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. [3]
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. [4] It is the first public stool bank, and was founded to facilitate use of FMT. [5] 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. [6]
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (
link)