Are you ready for a new era of “psychobiotics”? Treating the biome in the gut to ease the disorders of the brain is emerging as a promising field of study, and the market is watching. ScienceMagArchives
Katya Gavrish is searching for new brain drugs in a seemingly unlikely place: human stool samples. An earnest and focused microbiologist who trained in Russia and loves classical music, she's standing in front of a large anaerobic chamber in a lab at Holobiome, a small startup company here. She reaches into the glass-fronted chamber through Michelin Man–like sleeves to begin to dilute the sample inside.
The brain is the newest frontier, but it's one with an old connection to the gut. The ancient Greeks, for example, believed mental disorders arose when the digestive tract produced too much black bile. And long before microbes were discovered, some philosophers and physicians argued that the brain and gut were partners in shaping human behavior.
At their lab, Cryan, Dinan, and their colleague Gerard Clarke think the amino acid tryptophan, which some gut bacteria produce, could be a causal link. Microbes or the body's own cells can convert tryptophan into serotonin, a neurotransmitter implicated in depression and other psychiatric disorders. Cells also turn tryptophan into a substance called kynurenine, which reacts further to form products that can be toxic to neurons.
One growth factor Strandwitz identified turned out to be the key to launching his entrepreneurial dreams. He and colleagues isolated a bacterium that couldn't survive on typical culture media and required an amino acid called gamma-aminobutyric acid to thrive. GABA is a neurotransmitter that inhibits neural activity in the brain, and its misregulation has been linked to depression and other mental health problems.
He and Gilbert are unfazed by those uncertainties."If we can show an influence, without any side effects, I don't see any reason for not going forward with clinical trials," Gilbert says.
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