Getting Rid of the Guesswork Forewarned is forearmed. A new software tool – MDSINE – predicts how a simplified mouse microbiome reacts to probiotic intervention. Next? The human microbiome William Aryitey | 12/15/2016











At a Glance An imbalance of microbiomes can have serious health implications

Probiotic therapy has great potentail, but predicting how an individual’s microbiome will react to them is difficult

Pathologist Georg Gerber and his team have developed an algorithm-based tool that can forecast microbial reactions to interventions to aid research into therapeutic avenues

MDSINE, which is open source, has been validated in mice; Gerber plans to apply it to human data in the near future An imbalance in the microbiome – the micro-organisms living on and in the body – can have serious health implications. Reintroducing “healthy” bacteria (probiotics) to bring the microbiome back onto an even keel has great potential, but it can be hard to predict how a patient’s individual microbiota will react. Now, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School and the University of Massachusetts have created a new tool to help develop better bacteriotherapies. The Microbial Dynamical Systems INference Engine (MDSINE – pronounced M-Design) is a suite of computer algorithms that can forecast microbial behavior in complex ecosystems like the mammalian gut (1).

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About the Author

William Aryitey

My fascination with science, gaming, and writing led to my studying biology at university, while simultaneously working as an online games journalist. After university, I travelled across Europe, working on a novel and developing a game, before finding my way to Texere. As Associate Editor, I’m evolving my loves of science and writing, while continuing to pursue my passion for gaming and creative writing in a personal capacity.