Project Summary
Characterise multi-omics features of obesity and dementia against healthy microbiome and develop an innovative approach of donor selection for FMT.
What is the issue for NSW?
The health and economic impacts of obesity and dementia in NSW are considerable. Over 50% of the NSW population is classified as obese and face increased risk of a series of metabolic diseases and cancer. Across Australia, almost 500,000 people suffer from dementia and this number is expected to double by 2058.
In recent years, our understanding of the gut microbiome and its relationship to health has increased dramatically. Manipulation of the gut microbiome may offer treatment options for obesity and dementia. More research is needed to work out which people are best placed to be donors for FMT applications.
What does the research aim to do and how?
When there is an imbalance in microbial composition, changes in microbial activities, or changes in their distribution within the gut, an unhealthy condition called dysbiosis will result. This research will examine the dysbiosis features associated with obesity and dementia against phenotypically optimal healthy people assessed by state-of-the-art multi-omics technologies, including metagenomics, metatranscriptomics and metabolomics.
We also aim to perform a multi-omics based super donor selection for obesity and dementia, and to establish a standardised protocol for preparing the FMT. The multi-omics data will be used to create a microbial distance space, and healthy donors who are located far from the geometric centres of obesity and dementia in the plot will be selected. We will work with our collaborators, Lifeblood (Australian Red Cross), to prepare active FMT syringes from the super donors for FMT trials.