What are potential opportunities for gut microbiota testing for medical applications in the next 5-10 years?

Our client asked:

The focus of the project considered the direction of research on the gut microbiome, the associations between microbiota taxa and disease / treatments, and the potential diagnostic functionality of clinical gut microbiota tests.

The project story:

We reviewed clinical data on changes to gut microbiota and gathered the opinion of experts in microbiome studies, clinical lab directors, and experts in dysbiosis on the current status of the microbiome studies in research labs and future of testing technologies in academic labs, the potential to create clinical tests of the gut microbiome, and the suitability of different technology approaches for clinical tests of gut microbiome biomarkers.

Results: deliverables and outcomes

We identified:

• Current trends in research activity on the gut microbiome
• Advantage and limitations of discovery and targeted technology approaches for microbiome assessment
• Current clinical interest in routine microbiome testing and microbiome data analysis