Yesterday, a panel of experts at BioTrinity discussed the huge possibilities offered by the young microbiome field, which could soon overtake genetics.

Scientists and investors worldwide are starting to turn to the microbiome, which many believe hold the key to human health. The microorganisms that live in us and on us have shown to play a role in conditions ranging from obesity to cancer and neurodegenerative disease. I think it is a bigger deal than genetics, says Tim Spector, CEO of Map my gut, a company that offers direct-to-consumer microbiome sequencing services. But he reckons that being such a new field, still driven by small companies, very few are collecting samples of the microbiome as they should.

Back in the early days of genetics, companies would not collect DNA samples because it was too much trouble regarding ethical permissions, storage, he says. Something very similar seems to be happening with the microbiome despite the huge links with health that have been observed. The science is now there, and its obvious that anyone doing a big trial should measure how patients with different microbiome profiles respond to drugs.

Theres good evidence that efficacy and adverse effects of checkpoint inhibitors are linked to specific bacteria, agrees Mike Romanos, CEO of Microbiotica. BMScertainly believes this, as it recently signed a partnership with Enterome to study checkpoint inhibitors in the context of micrbiome-related biomarkers.

But we still have to find out how to mine such a huge potential. We need to know whats going on with the bacteria down to the strain level to fully understand their phenotype, Romanos says. With that aim, his company is building a data repository, similar to those for the human genome.

It seems that the field is rapidly growing and overcoming the challenges. The number of publications has risen exponentially in the last couple of years, says Denise Kelly from Seventure, a French VC with the first and only fund fully dedicated to microbiome companies. In a chat with her later, she explained that France is a hub with excellent microbiology research, counting with companies like MaaT Pharmaand Eligo Biosciencein addition toEnterome. France also led the European MetaHIT project, which was one of the first to sequence the microbiome, much like the Human Genome Project did before.

Kelly highlighted the main challenge at the moment is understanding the mode of action of specific organisms and the metabolites they produce. The field is in a very early stage, there are just 6 or 7 companies in clinical stage worldwide. (Indeed, when we scouted companies to include in our microbiome infographic, they seemed to be few and far between!)

For her, the next step is getting from studying correlation to identifying causality, and she knows a couple of companies that can pinpoint causality, but couldnt disclose their names. She did mention, though, the progress made with FishTaco, a system developed at the University of Washington that can discern how much each species contribute to a disease phenotype.

Furthermore, Kelly thinks that the public is more motivated than ever to look after themselves, not just regarding disease but also maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The microbiome affects every aspect of human physiology. The market is currently at 500M, but it can be much bigger if we make the right discoveries quickly, she concluded.

Images from royaltystockphoto.com, WhiteDragon /Shutterstock

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Experts say the Microbiome could overtake Genetics as the Next Big Thing - Labiotech.eu (blog)