Dr. Jennifer Auchtung, assistant professor, Department of Food Science and Technology, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, will present the seminar “Developing a novel therapeutic for Clostridium difficile infection.”

The gastrointestinal pathogen Clostridium difficile is the most common cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea and the leading cause of hospital-acquired infections. Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is one of the most effective treatments for recurrent CDI and administration of the subset(s) of bacteria responsible for restoring resistance to CDI is an attractive therapeutic target. Despite preliminary advances, no simplified consortia has progressed to a commercially-available therapeutic. After screening >100 simplified communities, we identified three communities that provided protection from C. difficile in experimental models. In addition to potential for these communities to be developed as therapeutics, these communities also provide unique tools to probe mechanisms through which the microbiome influences susceptibility to C. difficile infection.