dwalkerProbiotics are all the rage. Everyone from influencers to your best friend raves about the amazing benefits for overall wellness. Companies tout less bloating, better digestion, relief of brain fog, and mood enhancement when balancing the gut microbiome.
The truth, however, is that probiotics are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and using them to treat conditions could cause other health issues, says Jacques Ravel, PhD, director of the new Center for Microbiome Research and Innovation (CAMRI) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM). The gut microbiome’s role in infant health is just one area of research that Ravel and his colleagues study at CAMRI.
CAMRI officially launched in March at the Mid-Atlantic Microbiome Meet-Up hosted by CAMRI on the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) campus attended by microbiome scientists from throughout the D.C.-Delaware-Virginia-Maryland area. The meeting discussed wide-ranging microbiome science from the environmental microbiome of the Chesapeake Bay to non-human microbiomes from cheetahs to cheeses, and, of course, the human microbiome — the specialty of CAMRI’s faculty.
CAMRI’s establishment recognizes the extensive expertise in microbiome science and microbial genomics long held within the Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS) at UMSOM. CAMRI now serves as a hub for pioneering microbiome research — bridging foundational science with translational applications to improve health outcomes.
Why Study the Microbiome?
The microbiome is a community of microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, or viruses that live in the human body — the gut, mouth, and vagina — and on the skin. Disruptions or imbalances of these communities are often implicated in diseases, such as irritable bowel syndrome, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), or tooth decay. Microbiome health also has been linked to systemic health issues, such as heart disease, cancer, preterm birth, and poor mental health. However, the “right” microbiome can offer protection from these outcomes.
With strength in women’s and infant health, CAMRI’s seven faculty members led by Ravel study the microbiome’s role in vaginal health, STIs, and maternal and infant birth outcomes, as well as not only the role of the gut microbiome in infant health but also in organ transplantation.
The popularity of microbiome centers has grown throughout the United States in recent years with more than 80 located at universities and national laboratories. The growth recognizes that studying the microbiome’s impact on people and the environment is core to the life sciences.
CAMRI’s History
“Although we have recently formalized as a center, our history of innovating in research goes back 30 years to the sequence of the first free-living organism — Haemophilus influenza — by our IGS colleagues Claire Fraser and Owen White that launched the field of microbial genomics,” Ravel says.
At that time, Fraser and White worked at a now-defunct organization called The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, Md., that established the world’s first Microbial Sequencing Center. In 2007, Fraser brought many colleagues to UMSOM to launch IGS, including Ravel who had joined TIGR five years earlier.
In the first year of IGS, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) established the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) with the mission of generating resources to characterize the human microbiome and analyze its role in human health and disease. IGS received funding through HMP for multiple projects and established the HMP Data Analysis and Coordination Center under White’s leadership. The team followed with many more NIH-funded microbiome grants and impactful discovery to establish its leadership in the field.
Global Leadership in Research
In the 18 years since its establishment at UMSOM, IGS researchers have become global leaders in microbiome science, especially the vaginal microbiome. The media often seeks the expertise of the now-CAMRI faculty to comment on or advocate for issues involving the microbiome.
For example, in a unique interdisciplinary collaboration, Ravel and Diane Hoffman, JD, Jacob A. France Professor of Health Law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, and colleagues from UMSOM and the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, called for federal regulation of direct-to-consumer microbiome tests in a commentary in Science. One key point they make is that these tests to check your gut or vaginal microbiome are not regulated or clinically validated, and the companies’ recommendations could lead some to make harmful dietary changes or to become overdependent on supplements.
In an interview with Nature, Ravel pointed out that parents relying on these tests to change an infant’s or child’s microbiome without the supervision of a medical practitioner is particularly frightening.
“Excessive reliance on supplements could interfere with natural growth and development,” he says.
Other CAMRI faculty also share their expertise in the media. Rebecca Brotman, PhD, MPH, has been sought out for her science on understanding bacterial vaginosis (BV). In a commentary in JAMA Network Open, she advocated for a medication used in Europe to be better studied in the United States.
Women’s Health and Scientific American interviewed Johanna Holm, PhD, on what the vaginal microbiome can tell a woman about her overall health. The article states: “Holm also hopes for more research. Menopause and conditions like BV, fibroids, and endometriosis — which affect hundreds of millions of women every year — currently have received less than 0.1 percent of federal dollars for research.”
Innovation in Therapeutic Development
One area that sets CAMRI research apart from many other academic-led microbiome centers is its work on leveraging its microbiome research to develop live biotherapeutics drugs with the potential to prevent recurrence of BV, thus eliminating other obstetric complications.
“The first step is to understand what constitutes healthy or dysbiotic microbiomes — whether the vaginal, gut, mouth, or skin — and then to develop a therapeutic that goes through rigorous testing and approval by the Food and Drug Administration,” Ravel says.
His research has translated into a startup biotechnology company he founded in 2019, LUCA Biologics. LUCA’s first product constructed using its UMB-owned patented technology was licensed to SEED Health. This California-based company manufactures and sells VS-01, a vaginal probiotic that has shown significant benefits in restoring and maintaining a healthy vaginal microbiome in clinical trials.
“CAMRI, with the support of the Gates Foundation, is also working on developing a unique live biotherapeutic drug specifically designed to treat BV in African women,” Ravel says. “We’re grateful to have CAMRI as an established center within IGS at UMSOM to support our efforts so we can find treatments for many diseases caused by microbiome disruption.”
