Microbiome transplants can reprogram immune system to attack tumors

Changing the gut microbiome can reprogram the immune system to attack malignant tumors, according to results of a unique clinical trial at Sheba Medical Center in Israel. The results were published in the peer-reviewed journal Science by a research team led by senior GI oncologist Dr. Ben Boursi, senior oncologist Dr. Gal Markel and MD-PhD student Erez Baruch. “For the first time in the world, we have successfully fought cancerous tumors by changing the gut microbiome,” Boursi said.

“Currently, immunotherapy works for only 40 percent to 50 percent of patients. We anticipate that with the help of this revolutionary treatment, we will see as many patients as possible transforming from non-responders to responders,” he said. The researchers performed fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) on 10 terminally ill patients with metastatic melanoma who had not responded to immunotherapy and had exhausted all other existing treatment options. “In the first stage, we eradicated the patient’s existing microbiome, after which we transplanted gut microbiota from cancer survivors who’d had melanoma, but who had responded well to immunotherapy and who had been cancer-free for at least one year,” Boursi explained.-- More...