# DESIGNING A HIGH-THROUGHPUT PLATFORM TO BIOPROSPECT THE HUMAN MICROBIOME AND MANIPULATE ITS INTERPLAY WITH HOST ENVIRONMENTS

> **NIH NIH DP2** · UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH · 2022 · $142,992

## Abstract

DESIGNING A HIGH-THROUGHPUT PLATFORM TO BIOPROSPECT THE HUMAN MICROBIOME AND
 MANIPULATE ITS INTERPLAY WITH HOST ENVIRONMENTS
Project Summary
The human microbiome, comprising hundreds of microbial species living in and on the body, is now recognized
to play critical roles in human health and performance as well as disease prevention and management. A healthy
microbiome (which has not yet been fully characterized because some key species cannot be cultured) keeps
in check harmful microbes that are normally present. However, when this balance is perturbed, pathogenic
microbes may overgrow, a condition called dysbiosis, and compromise both gut and immune functions.
Development of technologies for the growth and manipulation of microbial consortia are urgently needed to
assess the beneficial effects attributed to probiotics and synthetic communities. Developing such ability would
enable clinicians to reverse microbial imbalance by providing a personalized set of microorganisms capable of
restoring gut functions associated with infectious, inflammatory, metabolic, cardiovascular, and cognitive
diseases in patients. To this end, my group aims to advance a bold and unique microfluidic-based technology to
isolate, culture, reconstruct, and, in the long-term, manipulate the human gastrointestinal (GI, gut) microbiome
to treat diseases. This application specifically aims to develop a nanoculture system to grow microbial isolates
from the gut, including those as yet unculturable, and identify beneficial interactions or bioactive metabolites
essential to design synthetic communities capable of eradicating or inhibiting the growth of pathogens such as
Clostridium difficile. The preliminary effectiveness of the ‘designed’ communities will be determined by treating
Clostridium difficile Infection (CDI) in an established mouse model. Our long-term goal is to develop a microbial
bank of live biotherapeutics of human origin comprising defined microbial communities applicable for
personalized and precision medicine. We envision this technology to be a safe, easy-to-deliver, and efficient
alternative to fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) to treat diverse dysbiotic conditions, and thus help restore a
healthy gut microbiome.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10472263
- **Project number:** 1DP2GM149553-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH
- **Principal Investigator:** Tagbo Herman Roland Niepa
- **Activity code:** DP2 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $142,992
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-09-08 → 2023-09-16

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10472263

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10472263, DESIGNING A HIGH-THROUGHPUT PLATFORM TO BIOPROSPECT THE HUMAN MICROBIOME AND MANIPULATE ITS INTERPLAY WITH HOST ENVIRONMENTS (1DP2GM149553-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10472263. Licensed CC0.

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