What’s In Your Gut? Lessons From The Microbiome

SXSW 2015 talk Alexandra Carmichael

Director of Community at uBiome

let’s start with stretching for a sec

that’s better. now who am I?

director of QS for 3 years, growing it to 92 cities

co-founder of CureTogether, acquired by 23andMe

now at uBiome (red pants!)

why study the microbiome?

100 trillion bacteria dancewith you

you have as many as 10 times more bacterial cells than human cells

we haven’t known much about them until 2012…

… when the human microbiome project

sequenced all DNA from the human microbiome

uBiome started the same year

we make microbiome testing available to everyone

5 test sites: gut

mouth skin nose

genitals

warning: I’m a data nudist

this is my gut

why is my gut actinobacteria 7x more

than average?

good guys

they’re anti-inflammatory good guys

maybe because I drink so much kombucha?

this is my skin

why is there no actinobacteria on my skin?

acne

on skin, these guys can contribute to acne

thanks mom?

I’ve always had pretty clear skin

but enough about me…

what else are we learning?

1. is there a difference between male and female

gut microbiomes?

uBiome data says they’re the same!

2. meet a real-life microbiome hacker

Richard Sprague

he hacked his sleep with potato starch and uBiome testing

3. do gut and mouth microbiomes have a

signature?

here are 1000 mixed up gut and mouth samples

and here they are separated

pretty cool, right?

4. helping teenagers with crohn’s

9 teens with Crohn’s had fecal microbiome transplants

(gut bacteria from a healthy donor)

7 of them were in remission after 2 weeks

5 were still in remission after 12 weeks

so much still to discover

what will you learn?

use discount code SXSWbacteria

for kit orders at ubiome.com

(code expires march 22)

come play with us at:

twitter @ubiome

facebook.com/ubiome

ubiomeblog.com

alexandra@ubiome.com

thanks for reading! hugs, alexandra