Dr M Nabil Quraishi's talk covered:

• What is a microbiome?

• Importance of the gut microbiota in health and disease

• How to classify gut microbiota

• What does a healthy microbiome look like?

• Why diversity matters

• What does a good study look like?

• Key questions to ask when designing a study or interpreting the data

• Building on results from association studies to aim to find causation

   

Professor Tariq Iqbal's talk covered:

• Approaches to microbiome manipulation

• Current mainstay treatments that may have a counteractive effect on the gut microbiome

• An overview of Microbiome Treatment Centre at the University of Birmingham including STOP-Colitis clinical trial

• An overview of research investigating Fecal Matter Transplant (FMT) to treat illness and disease such as C.diff and Ulcerative Colitis

• Challenges of FMT

• Current biotherapeutics available on the market

• What the future looks like for FMT and other microbiome manipulation therapies relating to chronic inflammatory conditions