This Month in Blastocystis Research (JUN 2016) - FMT Edition

From time to time, I've been touching upon the concept of faecal microbiota transplantion (FMT) in my blog posts. Now, there is a chance to familiarize yourself a lot more with this therapeutic approach to treating recurrent Clostridium difficile infection and other types of gastrointestinal diseases.

In my opinion, one of the more interesting aspects of FMT is to obtain knowledge about what microbes are actually being transferred (what microbes are allowed in stool selected for FMT?), and what are in fact the components in faecal transplants resulting in the high treatment success rates generally observed?

I dedicate this month's post to the launching of an online course in Faecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT) supported and developed by United European Gastroenterology (UEG) in collaboration with leading Italian gastroenterologists, including Dr Gianluca Ianiro, who was recently appointed as a new member of the UEG Young Talent Group. I was lucky to involved in the editing of the course.

Targeted learners include not only gastroenterologists, but also endoscopists, internists, paediatricians, endocrinologists, surgeons, infectious disease specialists and clinical microbiologists who are interested in gut microbiota and who deal with diseases associated with gut microbiota perturbation (recurrent CDI, IBD, IBS, obesity, diabetes and other metabolic disorders).

If you wish to take the course, it can be accessed through your myUEG account.

For general information about UEG, please go here. And for more information on UEG Education, please go here.

UEG Week 2014

The United European Gastroenterology (UEG) Week 2014 in Vienna is just around the corner. The conference kicks off on Saturday the 18th of October and judging from the program it will be a very interesting and inspiring event with so much to choose from that you will hardly be able to make up your mind about what to attend.

The general UEG website has now changed to the UEG Week Live site, which can be accessed here; however, you can still access the regular site here.

The programme for the entire venue can be downloaded here. There is also a very useful conference app (look for 'UEG Week 2014' in iTunes or go here), and a pathways tool, which you can download here.

However, I would like to invite you on a guided tour of some of the #UEGWeek topics for your inspiration. So, if you're interested in the clinical management and research developments in upper GI diseases, particularly in Helicobacter pylori, you may want to visit this blog post.

There's a panoply of interesting presentations and discussions on the menu for those who, like me, take an interest in the role of gut microbiota in health and disease, and to guide you through the jungle of treats, we developed this post. I doubt that there will be a lot on common intestinal microbial eukaryotic communities, but I'll try and see if I can stimulate the debate here and there...!

Happy World Digestive Health Day!

Today is World Digestive Health Day!

The theme is 'Gut Microbes -  Importance in Health and Disease'.

United European Gastroenterology (UEG), a professional non-profit organisation combining all the leading European societies concerned with digestive diseases, has launched a short video to raise awareness of such diseases:

In 2000, 600 million patients suffered from a gastrointestinal disease. By 2025, this is predicted to double to 1.2 billion (source).

For those interested (and with access!), there is a special issue on 'The Gut Microbiome in Health and Disease' in the journal Gastroenterology, one of the most renown and established journals in the field.

I would also like to bring your attention to the 5th ASM Conference on Beneficial Microbes, September 27-30 in Washington DC. Deadline for submission of abstracts is July 14.

Wishing everyone a nice World Digestive Health Day!