Dr. Justin Sonnenburg

So in that case, it's a situation where a new stable state has been achieved.

In that case, it's probably because those mice don't actually have access to the microbes that they've lost.

And we actually know that we did the control experiment of mice on a high fiber diet for four generations.

They maintain all their microbes.

If we take those fourth generation mice with all the diversity

and do a fecal transplant into the mice that had lost their microbes, but had been returned to a high fiber diet, all of the diversity was reconstituted.

So your question of like, how do we establish new stable states?

How do we get back to a healthy microbiota?

If we have taken a lot of antibiotics or have a deteriorated microbiota, it's probably a combination of having access to the right microbes

And we can talk about what that access looks like.

It may look like therapeutics in the future.

There are a lot of companies working on creating cocktails of healthy microbes, but it'll be a combination of access to the right microbes and nourishing those microbes with the proper diet.

Yeah, I mean, we know that in studies that are being done now to reprogram the gut microbiota to install a completely new microbial community, the first step is to wash away the resident microbial community that's there.

So if you're in the process of acquiring a really good microbiota and you know how to do that, then the flushing everything out is great.

Otherwise, what is happening is you're kind of leaving rebuilding of the community to chance.

Like, what is it?

And so, you know, what microbes are going to colonize?

Who's going to take up space after you do this flush or cleanse?

And, you know, that I think it's a little bit like playing Russian roulette.

You may end up with a