Amazing article in the New York Times. During my first proper job when I left university I was involved in a study looking at the transfer of commensal bacteria populations in isolated communities (on the British Antarctic Survey base station) and this topic has always fascinated me.
“Dr. Khoruts decided his patient needed a transplant. But he didn’t give her a piece of someone else’s intestines, or a stomach, or any other organ. Instead, he gave her some of her husband’s bacteria.”