Over the past 25 years, researchers have learned a lot about our microbial companions and generated a mountain of data thanks to advances in sequencing technology. But researchers still lack effective methods to alter the microbiome based off of this information. Introducing new microbes via supplements or fecal transplants has shown little success because new bacterial residents have a hard time grabbing a foothold in a crowded, established community. Killing pathogens with antibiotics also takes benign bacteria as collateral damage, and can lead to drug resistance in survivors.
“There's a lack of precision in terms of how we are able to manipulate the microbiome,” said Peter Turnbaugh, associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco, whose research team recently developed a microbiome-altering system using CRISPR-Cas9 editing technology. “That really motivated this sort of search for a tool that we could use to make more specific changes.”
In vitro, scientists ...
