Microbiome

Microbiome science studies the trillions of microorganisms living in and on the human body and their impact on health, disease, and therapeutic response. The human gut microbiome alone contains 30-40 trillion bacteria that influence digestion, immunity, mental health, and drug metabolism. The sector spans microbiome-based therapeutics (live biotherapeutics, fecal microbiota transplant, precision prebiotics), microbiome diagnostics (gut health testing, disease risk assessment), and microbiome-informed drug development (predicting how individual microbiome compositions affect drug efficacy and safety). The field gained its first FDA-approved products: Rebyota (2022) and Vowst (2023) for recurrent C. difficile infection, validating that microbiome-based therapies can achieve regulatory approval. However, the broader therapeutic promise (microbiome treatments for IBD, obesity, autism, depression, cancer) has been slower to materialize clinically than early research suggested.